Royal Household: Travel

Lord Berkeley: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they will ensure that any revised financial memorandum of understanding agreed between the Department for Transport and the Royal Household on travel funded by the grant in aid includes guidance on the use of helicopters for short journeys.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the financial memorandum contains strict criteria governing the use of transport. They are applied to all official royal journeys by air or rail. The use of helicopters is justified on a detailed options form for every journey. The financial memorandum was last revised in 2002, and the Government and the Royal Household will review it during the coming year. This will provide an opportunity to consider whether any changes are necessary.

Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. I am pleased to hear that strict criteria apply to the use of helicopters. Is he aware that 200 helicopter journeys were made last year by the eight members of the Royal Family who qualify for taxpayers' money, excluding the Queen and Prince Philip? The journeys include going to the Royal Bath and West show, from London to Milton Keynes, from Highgrove to Gloucester, and to Thorncote Green to present pony club rosettes. Could the Minister ensure that, when the memorandum is reviewed by the palace and the department, there will be much stricter criteria for how and when helicopters are used so that there is better use of taxpayers' money?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the criteria are strict. My noble friend will recognise that this past year has been an exceptional year in which security issues have come even more to the fore than ever before. He has listed one or two uses of the helicopter, but several of the journeys were made immediately in the wake of 7 July, and I am sure he would agree that it was only right that the safest form of travel was used then.

Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, is the Minister aware of how glad I was to hear his reply, because security must make it very difficult for those who organise such journeys? Furthermore, surely the use of a helicopter is more economical than putting the police out in all the districts through which the Royal Family will go and having security checks and a great deal of expense on the ground; using helicopters avoids all that.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, cost is a consideration, but security is the prominent and most important issue. Since 1997, when the financial memorandum was drawn up, significant reductions in the cost of royal transport have been effected, but the Royal Household is mindful of the costs involved, and its figures are published each year in a report that is open to everyone to scrutinise and comment on.

Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, will the Minister reflect on the fact that short journeys made by the Royal Family and Ministers of the Crown are made increasingly in helicopters because of the rise in congestion? Bearing it in mind that the Government have done nothing to relieve congestion in our cities since 1997, what proposals do they have for that?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord visits a city which has done quite a bit about congestion recently; namely, the congestion charge in London. He will recognise that, whatever transport strategies are pursued, demand for travel is almost irrepressible whether expressed in terms of the increase in the number of vehicles on the roads or increasing passenger use of our rail services. The problems of congestion are likely to be with us for the foreseeable future.

NHS: Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin

Lord Harris of Haringey: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether the proposal to discontinue the bulk purchase for National Health Service doctors of the independently produced Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin is consistent with their policy of providing doctors with impartial information to encourage clinical and cost-effective prescribing in the National Health Service.

Lord Warner: My Lords, no decision has yet been taken on whether to renew the contract for central procurement of the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin for 2006–07.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his reply in that at least no final decision has been taken. Is he aware that, with the contract due to expire at the end of next month, there is a real risk that, unless a speedy decision is taken, no alternative arrangements will be in place for the bulletin to continue? Is he also aware that the consequence of a failure to take a decision or to cease central funding will be the most grotesque false economy? I understand that the cost of the bulletin to the Department of Health is £1.4 million, compared with something like 1,000 times that amount being spent by the pharmaceutical industry on promoting drugs.

Lord Warner: My Lords, I am aware that time is short. Officials will meet the Consumers' Association tomorrow to discuss this issue. We have to rigorously scrutinise all central budgets. I also gently remind my noble friend that many other sources of advice are available to GPs and prescribers, including the British National Formulary and the British National Formulary for Children, which we have introduced, as well as lots of other sources of prescribing advice.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, what is going wrong when women are required to go on demonstrations or to go to the courts to get the drugs that they need for the treatment of breast cancer on the advice of their general practitioners?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I am sure that, if the noble Lord wants to table a Question on that, I shall be pleased to answer it.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, is the information in the bulletin available online? If so, is that not how doctors access it? Doctors are now very computer-conscious and surely would consult it in that way.

Lord Warner: My Lords, the bulletin is of course available online and at the moment is a free good for GPs. They could pay for it by subscription.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, does the Minister realise that promotions by drug companies, although in their vested interests, are not made at the public expense? However, I agree that the formulary that he mentioned is most important. Is he satisfied that it is readily available to GPs and that both editions, the one for adults and that for children, contain the necessary impartial information?

Lord Warner: My Lords, the British National Formulary is produced by experts and is made widely available in the medical profession. As I said, this year we introduced the British National Formulary for Children, which is also a great aid to prescribers. It is independent and gives reliable information to doctors.

Baroness Barker: My Lords, does the Minister accept that, notwithstanding other sources of information including that provided by the drug companies themselves, this bulletin provides independent information that is widely accepted by GPs as unbiased? It also provides up-to-date clinical evidence on the efficacy of treatments with existing medicines. Its loss would have disastrous consequences for prescribing.

Lord Warner: My Lords, however good the bulletin is, it is important to remember that we have the British National Formularies that I mentioned. We have NHS prescribing advisers, area prescribing committees, medical journals giving a lot of information about clinical trials and scientific studies, NICE guidance and the National Prescribing Centre. Those comprise a large number of sources of independent advice available to GPs.

Lord Rea: My Lords, when I was in National Health Service general practice, I used to welcome the regular receipt of this excellent impartial and objective bulletin. It gives information about drugs as they come on-stream and an assessment of other drugs, which the British National Formulary does not. Further to my noble friend's Question, would it not be a false economy to cut out the distribution of this excellent guide to rational and economic prescribing when the drugs bill to the National Health Service, which is about 6,000 times as great, is rising by 7 per cent per annum?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I have made it clear that we have not made a final decision on the renewal of the contract. As I said, there are many alternative sources of advice. None of that diminishes the quality of the bulletin, but, if I may gently say so, since my noble friend was in practice there has been a large increase in the number of website sources of information in this area.

Lord Colwyn: My Lords, in view of the increasing evidence of the effectiveness of natural medicines and the placebo effect, as demonstrated and publicised by the recent work by Professor Kathy Sykes, will the Government divert some of the 8 per cent of total NHS expenditure spent on guidance on prescriptive drugs to research on complementary medicine?

Lord Warner: My Lords, we carefully weigh up all the requirements for the resources available for NHS research and development, and I am sure that colleagues will consider that suggestion from the noble Lord.

Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, is the Minister aware that no doctor sits down to read the national formulary? It is a reference book; whereas the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin is something that one reads from cover to cover when it arrives. It is readable and interesting. You do not read reference books from cover to cover.

Lord Warner: My Lords, I am grateful for that insight from the noble Lord and welcome his contribution.

Office for Disability Issues

Lord Ashley of Stoke: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What objectives they have set for the new Office for Disability Issues.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the Office for Disability Issues was launched on 1 December last year. Its objective is to lead the delivery of the Government's commitment to real equality for disabled people by 2025. It will do that by agreeing and driving forward a cross-government strategy and by bringing the voices of disabled people into the heart of government.

Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that response. Does he agree that the Government are totally committed to achieving the targets for equality and social inclusion set out in the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit report? Does he further agree that an important objective for the Office for Disability Issues is to monitor the progress, or lack of it, of each government department in implementing those targets?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right: we are very much committed to achieving what he set out. The Office for Disability Issues is a cross-government department initiative that will enable us to keep a close eye on the performance of government as a whole and on individual departments. As he said, we will keep a close eye on progress.

Lord Addington: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the reports will be brought before Parliament as quickly as possible and that, whenever it is felt needed, we will have time to discuss them? Unless Parliament continues to apply pressure, we may well lose one of the major levers to achieve the objective.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the noble Lord will know that reports from the office will go to the Prime Minister. I am sure that the ministerial group that will oversee the work of the office will welcome parliamentary debate. Of course, that is in the hands of the House authorities, but I am sure that Ministers from my department will be very willing to take part in such scrutiny.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, does the Minister agree that one objective of the office may be to work towards reducing the 10 per cent earnings gap between the disabled and other employees?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I have no doubt that a considerable number of matters will be drawn to the attention of the office. The additional cost of living for disabled people has been well aired in your Lordships' House. The office will continue to keep that under review, as will my department. One of the reasons why disabled people will sometimes have less income than other sectors in society is the employment rate for disabled people. That is why the welfare reform Green Paper, which my department produced a couple of weeks ago, is so important in encouraging people who either are or will be receiving incapacity benefit to look at the opportunities to go back into work.

Lord Morris of Manchester: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hunt and to my noble friend Lord Ashley. Given its high importance to independent living for severely disabled people, how quickly can we expect action on the unmet need for adjustments to the common parts of let residential premises to which the review group drew attention?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, my noble friend is right to refer to common parts. A review group has been set up to review the legal position on the adaptation of common parts of residential premises. The report was submitted to Ministers and is being considered. I cannot give my noble friend a date yet, but we will respond to the proposals as soon as possible.

Baroness Wilkins: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the independent living network should be a prime objective of the ODI, given that the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit report said that there should be a centre for independent living in every locality by 2010?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I very much agree with my noble friend about the importance of centres for independent living. My understanding is that there are 22 fully constituted centres with another 15 local disability organisations either providing a similar role or working towards becoming a centre for independent living. My noble friend is right. The more that the centres can be developed, the more support and help can be given to disabled people and the more we can make advances towards independent living, which is the intention of this policy. On the development of further centres, the Department of Health is in discussion with stakeholders. The Office for Disability Issues will keep a close eye on that as well.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, will the "at home" issue of disability be dealt with by this office or by this House? Is the Minister aware that since his predecessor's time, I have spoken of how unsatisfactory Portcullis House is for the disabled? There are no mirrors in the toilets for disabled people, although they like to be able to see how they look. We have also been told that the very heavy doors have been made easier to open, but disabled people still have great difficulty with them and the round handles in Portcullis House. Will that come under this House or the new office?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the Office for Disability Issues is in my department and will provide a facility throughout Whitehall. I hesitate to suggest that it should start pronouncing on matters whose supervision is probably the responsibility of the authorities in this House and another place. In view of the noble Baroness's comments, I will draw this to the attention of the House authorities.

Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, one has to welcome the new initiative, but does the Minister agree that although there has been a similar initiative with respect to women in government, it has not had the effect that one might have hoped for in reducing, for example, salary or earnings differentials between women and men, except in the public service? What progress can such bodies make in those aspects of inequality?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I do not share the noble Baroness's disappointment. The Government have an excellent record on women's issues in general, as they do in supporting disabled people. I am confident that the whole of government accepted the thrust of the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit report. It has the support of all government departments. A ministerial group, a task force and an advisory group have been established, and they are all mechanisms to ensure that we deliver on the policy.

Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, why is there a target of 20 to 25 years? Is 20 years not rather a long time to take to achieve these objectives?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, it is best to be as accurate as we can about the time that it will take to produce the full equality that we want. It is an ambitious programme, and it is surely better to set out a realisable target than an overoptimistic one that then disappoints. It will lead to a fundamental change in the lives of disabled people. We are already making progress by developing the concepts of independent budgets and independent living and with the use of the DDA legislation. All of those play a part, but it is a considerable challenge to ensure that the whole of the programme is implemented. I am confident that we can make progress at an early stage, but we should not underestimate the real challenge that is there.

Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, would the Minister kindly ask the new office to promote something on which his predecessor and I were as one: the fact that St John's, Smith Square, has no facilities for disabled people? I believe that that is illegal.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I am shocked to hear that information, and I will be happy to bring that to the attention of the appropriate authorities.

Earl Attlee: My Lords, what is the budget for the office?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, it is starting with a set-up cost of £5 million. Then we are thinking about an annual running cost of £8 million, but that will be kept under review.

China: Human Rights

Lord Alton of Liverpool: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What account is taken of human rights violations and limits imposed on individual liberties when determining bilateral relations with China.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, the United Kingdom Government have serious concerns about a wide range of human rights issues in China. We pursue a policy of critical engagement with the Chinese Government that aims to improve the human rights situation on the ground in China, develop our bilateral relationship and encourage China to play a constructive and responsible role in international affairs.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, following the arrest of the blind Chinese human rights activist, Cheng Guangcheng, for protesting against the compulsory sterilisation or abortion of 7,000 women in one county of the Shandong province over a four-month period and following the continued imprisonment or torture of political and religious dissenters in China, how do Her Majesty's Government view Google's self-serving and supine decision to allow the Chinese Government to censor its search engine, expunging all references to the one-child policy, human rights, democracy and events such as the annexation of Tibet and the brutal reaction of Chinese forces in Tiananmen Square?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, it is really for Google to answer questions about the commercial decisions that it takes to co-operate with the Chinese Government on restrictions to the Internet. The United Kingdom Government, however, believe that freedom of information is essential to the development of a modern, sustainable and stable society. I have argued that with the Chinese Government on a number of occasions in respect of the World Service and access to the Internet, and I believe it is right to continue to do so.

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, what progress have Her Majesty's Government made in persuading the Chinese Government to announce a timetable for the ratification and implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the ICCPR, which is signed but not yet ratified?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, on 12 and 13 December last year the United Kingdom hosted an EU-China human rights dialogue seminar on the ratification of that treaty. The discussion focused on the three problematic articles: the right to a fair trial, arbitrary arrest/detention and the serious crimes that are punishable by death. The event gave us the opportunity to argue the case. We will continue to argue the case and to press for a ratification date. We believe that the Chinese have an obligation to come to a rapid conclusion on the matter.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, considering that the EU-China dialogue on human rights has been going on for 10 years—the UK-China dialogue for even longer—does the Minister agree that the time has come for a comprehensive review of those processes to identify what methodologies are effective in persuading the Chinese to improve their human rights record and where other and more effective methods might be tried?
	Bearing in mind what the Minister said about persuading China to be constructive in regard to its international obligations, could the human rights dialogues be widened so that China is brought to a more comprehensive awareness of its responsibilities with regard to human rights in African countries where it is now playing an important role?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I ponder that question with some care. This is a very powerful world power; a country that is now an economic giant and will be still more so; a country where persuasion and argument are the best methods that we have available; and where from time to time we see progress being made. That is true across the range of human rights. We will make progress week by week, month by month, including on African issues in which I am personally engaged. If it is frustratingly slow, I look to noble Lords to point out the switch that can be pulled that will change the fundamental trajectory.

Lord Soley: My Lords, does the Minister take comfort from a visit that was made to this country by a number of senior Chinese government figures about three or four years ago? They asked me whether I was optimistic or pessimistic for the future of China. I said that I was optimistic for the economy, hopeful for the rule of law but worried about the ability to change governments and deal with human rights without difficulty. Their answer to me was commendably honest. They said, "You might be worried, but not as worried as we are".
	As the Minister says, the reality is that China is moving, sometimes in the right direction, sometimes—as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, indicated—very much in the wrong direction . It is our job to try to encourage China down the right route while bringing to its attention the failings that are still manifest.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, my noble friend is right: that is the way in which we have to work. On balance there have been some small indications of the kind of progress that the House would welcome. They are not systematically sustained, but none the less there have been some indications. The work has to be continued by people who believe that there is a worthwhile objective at the end. Everybody could just give up, but that is not the point.

Lord Hylton: My Lords, does the Minister agree that economic giants have a duty to behave themselves just as well as anybody else? Can he say what effect persuasion has so far had in preventing abhorrent practices such as forced labour for pregnant women and forced abortions? Is there any improvement on the persecution of a wide range of religious groups in China?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord: it is right to say that major economic powers have obligations. It is one of the characteristics of being a major power that a country should take the full burden of international responsibilities for good practice and improving practice.
	In the areas mentioned by the noble Lord, I fear that there has been all too little agreement. That is what I was saying. We will continue to argue such issues as religious freedom, treatment of women, treatment of prisoners and standards in the judiciary. The list is quite long.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, are any human rights organisations that are independent of the Chinese authorities tolerated in China?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, my noble friend used the word "tolerated". We are aware of some human rights organisations, but the extent to which they are tolerated is a moot point. They flourish, sometimes temporarily. Often, they have flourished so long as they could keep an Internet site going, and that has sometimes been repressed. We have done all that we can to give them the best environment in Internet terms and as regards arguments about access to media. "Tolerated" is not the right word, but such organisations do exist.

Lord Elton: My Lords, the Chinese are in a good position to ignore our moral indignation to the full extent that they wish, but they would not be so free if we expressed opinions in unanimity with a large number of other countries. What collective pressure on human rights is being brought to bear on the Chinese Government?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, everybody who looks at the decision-taking mechanisms in, for example, the United Nations Security Council will be aware that there is seldom unanimity. There is no great commitment even at the General Assembly for everybody to move in the same direction and in the ways that we believe would be right. We are, however, seeing progress in several areas—Africa, incidentally, is one of them. Forgive me for repeating a previous answer, but we have to work continuously with some patience—we do not have much option but to work with patience—to align other countries behind the propositions that I have put to your Lordships' House.

Identity Cards Bill

Lord Grocott: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Identity Cards Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

Bill read a third time.
	Clause 1 [The National Identity Register]:

Lord Ackner: moved Amendment No. 1:
	Page 2, line 31, at beginning insert "if the individual so chooses,"

Lord Ackner: My Lords, I do not claim paternity of this short, simple and important amendment; I concede that honour to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton. The limited function to which I am entitled to limited credit is to draw your Lordships' attention to the extent to which he is neglecting his own offspring and to invite your Lordships to give statutory protection to the infant.
	The amendment arises quite simply in this way. Clause 1(7)—to be found about two-thirds of the way down page two of the present draft—provides:
	"In this section references to an individual's identity are references to—
	(a) his full name;
	(b) other names by which he is or has previously been known".
	Nothing could be clearer than the fact that (b) is additional to (a)—two statutory obligations,
	"his full name [and] other names by which he is or has previously been known".
	The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, appreciating that this was the situation, raised the matter on the third day of Committee on Wednesday 23 November last year by tabling an amendment which proposed that the word "legally" be inserted into paragraph (b).
	That was followed by a lengthy discussion, lasting close to 30 minutes, in which 14 of your Lordships took part. Questions were raised as to what "legal" meant and how one could define it having regard to the fact that there was no formal obligation to adopt any particular procedure when one changed one's name; deed poll may be a good way but usage and repute is equally effective. Then there followed questions about nicknames. I raised a question as to the obligation in that situation. I illustrated my views by a reference to the late Lord Justice Purchas, known universally as Bob Purchas, yet his Christian name was Francis—Francis Purchas.
	I could have added another colleague of mine, Buster Milmo, who was known consistently by that name. I bear in mind that I had a similar nickname, which I decided was not wholly consistent with the pomp and splendour of the Bar, and after all repressed it. The result was that when Sir Norman Skelhorn, the previous DPP, sent a telegram congratulating "Buster", he meant it to refer to Buster Milmo and not to me, but those who knew me by that nickname were confused.
	So the discussion was wide ranging. I said that I had still not understood the position, and referred to Lord Justice Purchas. Then, all of a sudden, with his well recognised perspicacity, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said:
	"I shall try to pin it down. In those circumstances the person should register as Francis, but"—
	I emphasise this point—
	"he could also provide the name Bob to the national identity register".
	That was the first suggestion that there was a choice available to the individual in regard to what he put under (b). There is no reflection of that in the subsection. Further on, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, asked,
	"Am I right in understanding that one has to put down the name of one's choice, that other names are entirely voluntary and there is no compulsion to put down all the names that one is known by?".
	The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, replied,
	"I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, because I think he understands the situation well".—[Official Report, 23/11/05; col. 1638.]
	That puzzled the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, who in her reply said:
	"I am grateful to all noble Lords—about 13, I think—who have taken part in a debate on an amendment which I had intended to lead to some clarity. I think it has just opened another can of worms. I certainly do not intend to examine that can of worms any more today. I shall consider what we are to do before Report stage. I was grateful to the Minister for his response at the end to my noble friend Lord Lucas. I understood him to be saying something that he had not quite said earlier: that we may elect what names we put down and will not then be penalised for leaving out names. If that is the case, then it sounds a very common-sense way forward . . . There has been some confusion. I hope that the Minister's closing remarks to my noble friend Lord Lucas"—
	the same comments that I have read out—
	"will mean greater clarity. If we find that the Government think again on that point, obviously we may have to return to it".—[Official Report, 23/11/05; col. 1639.]
	The amendment was by leave withdrawn.
	I attended the Report stage. I had assumed that paragraph (b) would be modified in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, suggested, and I had therefore not paid the anticipatory attention that perhaps I should have done. When I came to look at the amendments on Report, there were none. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, had done nothing to further the increased vitality of his offspring, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, had therefore nothing new to contemplate. Having observed that, it occurred to me that the position was really most untidy. We have an obligation under paragraph (b), which I read out, that is entirely unqualified, and yet we appear to have reached unanimity among the 13 or 14 of us who spoke that it should be "at the choice of", hence the words that I have used. The drafting that I have followed is consistent with the same wording that is found in subsections (5) and (6).
	In these circumstances, I hope that your Lordships will be easily persuaded now to provide the certainty that we all long for. Accordingly, I beg to move.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I listened with great interest to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, bringing back the amendment in an improved form. As he said, he is trying to reflect fairly the response given by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, to an amendment of mine which I had, of course, intended in all seriousness in Committee, but for some reason the House seemed to find a little frivolous at the time. The reason why I did not bring it back on Report—because as the House will know I like to help the Government on each and every occasion—was that I realised that the Government were in a complete mess on this and that on this occasion the mess was so comprehensive that I could not find a way out of it for them.
	In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said that the Government needed some flexibility in the format of paragraph (b), and therefore they needed to be able to compel us to register a range of names; not just our principal name but others by which we are now, or have been previously, known.
	I am about to say two things, one of which I think will bring comfort to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, and the other of which I think he will wish that I had not said. I shall say the nice thing first.
	When the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, referred to flexibility, he went on to say:
	"The register has been designed . . . to accommodate the fact that a number of people use more than one name".—[Official Report, 23/11/05; col. 1636.]
	He then said that the Government needed this flexibility to cope with identity fraud and the problems that that causes. I hope that the Minister will bring a more effective argument than that to the House on this occasion. When the Government published their figures about identity fraud on 2 February and made extravagant claims about its extent and the importance of this Bill in tackling it, they then found that their claims were blown apart by the very body which provided those statistics; that is, APACS, the Association for Payment Clearing Services. It said that the cost of identity fraud that the Government had put forward had been grossly overestimated and that its own figures had been misrepresented. Ministers included in their total the cost of money laundering, but the Home Office admits that only "illustrative figures" were involved and that,
	"no figures are currently available on the proportion of money laundering that relies on identity fraud".
	Furthermore, the Government claim that APACS put the cost of ID fraud linked to plastic cards at £504 million, but a spokeswoman for APACS then said that the real figure was less than £37 million. She said:
	"The £504 million is the total losses for plastic cards. It is not just identity fraud on cards. Within that overall figure, there will be some cards stolen in the post, some skimmed or cloned, some lost or stolen".
	When asked why she thought that the Home Office had used the larger sum, she said:
	"I just think they think it's a good story to scare people with".
	In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, cited identity fraud as the driving argument for subsection (b). I hope that he will be able to bring a more sturdy argument for the necessity of the subsection to the House.
	I now come to the part of my remarks which will not please the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner. I reflected on the can of worms that we had opened in Committee. The argument that persuaded me that however bad subsection (b) was I could not yet find a satisfactory way out of it is as follows: if the House were to accept the noble and learned Lord's amendment, its drafting would mean that we would have the option to register any name other than our current principal name. The noble and learned Lord gave admirable reasons why we should have that option.
	My concern centres around the problem of how we then ensure that the multiple identities of those who have been, and are, serious criminals or terrorists—either living within this country, or outwith it before coming to live here—are registered on the national identity register. If there is any argument for its use, it should be that of national security. That is an argument that we pursued throughout Committee and Report. We still say that much better and more effective ways of ensuring national security exist than by using this intrusive, bureaucratic identity register.
	However, if the Government were to accept the noble and learned Lord's amendment, there could be difficulties in obtaining the very information about terrorists which we would all wish to have readily available to the police and to immigration officials when they check that register. The Minister may of course surprise us all and accept the noble and learned Lord's amendment, but if he is not going to do so, I hope that he will make a more robust response than he did in Committee and also recognise that the Government, by the very drafting of this Bill, have done exactly what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, said and left the position as an unknown. Members of the public will not find that a very convenient way of registering their names when they read Clause 7(1)(b).

Lord Hylton: My Lords, when the Minister replies for the Government will he say something about subsection (7)(d), which uses the words "the date of his death", which reminds me of Gogol's famous novel, Dead Souls. I can see that the living may sometimes want to impersonate the dead, but does there not come a time when the dead should be decently interred? How long will the names of the dead be kept on the national register?

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am more sympathetic to the amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, than that of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. The noble and learned Lord, having led us this far up the garden path regarding his former nickname, should tell us why he was given it.
	No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, will tell us in reply to the amendment that, surely, the requirement to provide a full name, which is unaffected by the amendment, must mean the current full name. My other point is that it will make little difference whether or not the amendment is allowed. I would be grateful if the noble Lord would help the House, because the Bill is always springing little surprises on us, even at Third Reading.
	As I understand it, Schedule 1 has a paragraph entitled "Validation information", which clearly states:
	"The following may be recorded in the entry in the Register for an individual",
	and begins,
	"the information provided in connection with every application,"
	for an ID card. That relates to all the background information. Paragraph 7(c ) states:
	"particulars of the steps taken, in connection with an application . . . for identifying the applicant or for verifying the information provided".
	I anticipate that the procedure in connection with applications for ID cards and their consideration by the Passport Office will centre heavily around identification and, in particular, around the name. Thus, with or without the amendment, it seems to me that you will have logged on your file in the national register all the stuff about previous names—I will not say nicknames.
	It would be helpful for us to know the rights and wrongs of that.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, given our debates in Committee I rather thought that I might have been to blame for the amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner. I hope that I can rise reasonably effectively to the tease in his amendment and I thank him for moving it again so that we could debate this issue, as we did with some amusement at an earlier stage. I should also address some of the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, regarding the latest published figures on identity fraud.
	I accept that there has been some dispute in the press over those figures, but for our part, we feel that the figure of £1.7 billion has in the main been agreed with all the key stakeholders. We have never claimed that the introduction of identity cards would impact on all of that fraud but it would certainly make a substantial difference. I suspect that the noble Baroness appreciates that that is the case. I do not know whether she occasionally watches commercials as intently as I do—I am obliged to by my children—but I recall that a major credit card, Capital One, I think, is drawing people's attention to its own variant of credit card rating by claiming to be more secure from fraud and identity fraud than other credit cards. That is entirely a matter for those involved, but clearly there is an issue which we cannot dismiss. Yes, it is part of the Government's case that having a secure system of identity will ensure that the chances of people being able to secure and steal one's identity for a fraudulent purpose are much reduced. That is important, certainly for consumers, who have to pay the cost of identity fraud through their credit card bills.
	As noble Lords are by now no doubt aware, Clause 1 sets out the statutory purposes, an important component of which are the registrable facts—that is, the key pieces of information through which people's identity will be established. Clause 1(7)(b) includes within the registrable facts other names by which a person is or has previously been known. That is set out in the Bill.
	This amendment, as moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, would qualify that paragraph with the words,
	"if the individual so chooses",
	and would introduce the element of choice in the way in which he described. The effect of the amendment would be twofold. First, it would impact on the Secretary of State's regulation-making power in Clause 5(3), under which the information that must accompany an application to be registered will be prescribed. That power is limited by Clause 5(6), the effect of which is that the regulations may not require information from a person unless that information is required for the statutory purposes. Amendment No. 1 would write into the statutory purposes the proposition that it is entirely a matter for the individual concerned whether or not previous or other names are recorded. Regulations which nevertheless required such information would therefore be of dubious legality.
	The second effect that the amendment would have is that, where a person changed his name and updated his entry on the register, his previous name could, arguably, not be held unless he consented to it being so held. That is because, as a consequence of Clause 3(1), information may continue to be held on the register only if it is consistent with the statutory purposes to do so.
	We take the view that the power to determine if and when previous or other names should be held on the register should not rest solely with the individual concerned, as suggested in the amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner. In fact, as regards previous names in particular, we consider that for the prevention and detection of fraud it is imperative that that discretion does not remain with individuals.
	On enrolment, it will be necessary to ask whether an individual has had a previous name so that verification of all the information provided by him can be carried out effectively. This is nothing new and is a common request on many application forms, such as the passport application. To do otherwise would leave a loophole to assist those wishing to create a false identity.
	The recording of previous names is also important to tackle situations where fraudsters change their name and address in rapid succession in order to create a new identity or fraudulently use that of another person. Currently, such crimes can be difficult to prevent, as there is no reliable source that can link a previous and current name to the same individual. Very often, a proof of change of name does not even exist. By recording previous names, the identity card scheme can help to tackle this problem far more effectively than can current methods such as a presentation of a deed poll, where there is absolutely no assurance that you are in fact the person on the deed poll.
	A different rationale underlies the recording of second names. As our letter to Peers during Committee stage clarified, this is intended primarily to be for the convenience of the individual who may need to be verified in a different name, such as a stage name or their maiden name. To that extent, it will indeed be a matter for the individual concerned whether or not he registers a second—or, indeed, third—name as his current name.
	However, there will be certain circumstances in which the Secretary of State will require details of a second, current name to be held on the register. For example, in the small number of cases in which those members of the transgender community living dual gender lives will have two cards, both names will have to be recorded on the register.
	As noble Lords are aware, people are free to call themselves whatever they like. A change of name does not need to be effected by deed poll. Our policy on names in relation to the register in no way changes that position. We will require people to register their primary name, that is to say the name by which a person is known for all purposes. We will provide guidance to ensure that a person is satisfied that the right name is on record, in line with the current practice of the UK Passport Service. Attendance at an enrolment centre will also ensure that any questions can be clarified by a member of staff before enrolment is complete.
	I hope I have been able to explain clearly to the House why we consider that the discretion to determine if and when a previous or an alternative name should be held on the register should not, as the amendment tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, would suggest, rest entirely with the individual concerned.
	I have referred to the regulation-making power in Clause 5(3) to prescribe the information which must accompany an application to be registered. It is those regulations that will contain the details of exactly when previous names and alternative names will be required from applicants. I should remind noble Lords that on the first occasion on which regulations are made under that power the parliamentary procedure will be the affirmative resolution procedure. Thus the matter will come before your Lordships' House at a later date.
	Other questions were raised during the debate and I shall try to respond to them as best as I can. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, asked about previous names being included in the validation information. I agree with him that it is likely that previous names would be investigated and recorded as validation information under paragraph 7 of Scheduled 1. I am in agreement with the noble Lord on that point. However, that would be a rather indirect route. We believe that previous names are highly relevant to establishing a person's true identity and in combating fraud. Therefore, we take the view that it is right that they should be included as registrable facts in themselves.
	The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, asked how long a deceased person's names will be kept. In essence, the answer is as long as necessary for the statutory purposes of the scheme. Clearly, we need to be able to guard against what is sometimes known as the Day of the Jackal-type fraud. I recall that at an earlier stage of the Bill we had some discussion on that. Fraudsters seek to use the identities of people who have died. The answer is for as long as necessary. At this stage I cannot say exactly how long that will be. We shall have to give continued thought to that point.
	I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, for bringing forward this discussion today. I hope that I have clarified any confusion that may have arisen. I had hoped that the letter that we sent after Committee stage had done that. I hope that having heard that explanation the noble and learned Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, is the Minister really telling the House that the Government believe that fraudsters will tell the identity card officer all their previous names when they apply for cards?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I would not speculate on that. Clearly establishing the other names that someone is known by would assist us in combating fraud, but it is very important that the details of previous names are on the national identity register so that we have as complete a record as possible.

Lord Ackner: My Lords, until the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, intervened, I thought he was a friend of mine. If he were really interested in how I obtained my sobriquet, he would have asked me that in private. I never have any secrets from the House. There is a certain sweetness about this which I hope he would naturally associate with me. On my fourth birthday, I was presented with a chocolate cake by my parents. I embraced it, and the conclusion was that the dear child would rather bust than waste his sweetmeats—hence the word "buster". Now that he knows all, I hope he will find it relevant to this construction exercise that we are all going through.
	With regard to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, I draw her attention to Clause 5, which is on page 5 of the Bill, headed:
	"Applications relating to entries in Register".
	Clause 5(2) states:
	"Where an application to be issued with a designated document is made by an individual, the application may, if the individual so chooses, do one of the following . . . include an application by that individual to be entered in the Register . . . state that the individual is already entered in the Register and confirm the contents of his entry . . . state that the individual is entered in the Register and confirm the contents of his entry subject to the changes notified in the application".
	Clearly, discretion is given to the applicant. Clause 6(7) provides:
	"An individual who is not already the holder of an ID card may, if the individual so chooses, in the prescribed manner, include an application to be issued with such a card in every application made by him to be issued with a designated document".
	Once again, discretion is given to the individual.
	I find the submissions of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, unconvincing. There is an absolute obligation; no exceptions or any form of limitation on the clause are provided. Accordingly, some modification is required. That is why the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, sought to include her qualification of legality, which did not find favour. The need for modification was made perfectly clear by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, who, having gone through the various problems raised in Committee, made it clear that there was a discretion. But there was not. The words are absolute, and accordingly, they needed modification. It was conceded in Committee that this is an important point. In those circumstances, I want to test the opinion of the House.

Lord Brabazon of Tara: The Question is that Amendment No. 1 shall be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say, "Content". To the contrary "Not-Content". I think the Not-Contents have it. Clear the Bar.
	Division called
	Tellers for the Contents have not been appointed pursuant to Standing Order 54. A Division therefore cannot take place, and I declare that the "Not-Contents" have it.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendment No. 2:
	Page 2, line 34, leave out "physical" and insert "external"

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, Amendment No. 2 amends the list of registrable facts so that instead of Clause 1(7)(e) referring to "physical" characteristics that are capable of being used for identifying an individual, it refers to "external" characteristics that are capable of being used for identifying an individual.
	I should say at the outset that this amendment is not intended to give effect to any change of policy. However, it fulfils the Government's commitment on Report to review this matter in response to concerns understandably expressed by a number of noble Lords. In particular, the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, was concerned that the reference to "physical" characteristics could encompass internal characteristics. As I said at the time, the wording of paragraph (e) has to be considered as a whole, and it is not at all obvious that internal characteristics would be a useful, or indeed a viable, means of identifying people.
	However, we accept the noble Lord's point that for the sake of clarity this matter should be put beyond doubt in the Bill. I have therefore brought forward government Amendment No. 2, which changes the word "physical" to "external". By implication "internal" characteristics are not a registrable fact. They could not therefore be recorded on the register other than in the limited circumstances provided for in Clause 3(3); that is to say where a person has requested that additional information—for example, his blood group—be held on his record.
	There is a further benefit in bringing forward Amendment No. 2. It would bring the wording in Clause 1(7)(e) into line with the definition of biometric information in Clause 43(1), which also uses the phrase "external characteristics". It will therefore be beyond doubt that the reference in Clause 1(7)(e) to external characteristics encompasses biometrics.
	Finally, Amendment No. 2 would have the consequence that DNA could be added to Schedule 1 only by way of primary legislation, not by way of order subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. The reason for this is that DNA is not an external characteristic, so is not a registrable fact. Holding it on the register would not be consistent with statutory purposes. As has been said many times before in this House and in another place, it is not and has never been our policy that DNA should be stored on the register. This Bill in no way caters for a DNA register. For example, while there are powers to require fingerprints to be taken, there are no powers to require DNA samples. A future government who wished to add DNA to the information which may be held on the register would have to bring forward further primary legislation. Amendment No. 2 has the consequence of putting that issue beyond a shadow of a doubt. I beg to move.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and the Government for this amendment, for all the reasons the Minister has just given us. This really is an important amendment because the issue of the potential of DNA samples being part of one's entry on the register is one that exercises many people. It is therefore entirely welcome that this amendment is brought forward, and I support it.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I give my full support to this. It is important that this further clarification is given. I know that in another place the Government tried to give assurances, but this was the final step they needed to take. I welcome it.

On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Clause 3 [Information recorded in Register]:

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendment No. 3:
	Page 3, line 47, at end insert—
	"( ) An individual's entry in the Register must include any information falling within paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 that relates to an occasion on which information contained in his entry has been provided to a person without the individual's consent.".

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, Amendment No. 3 has been tabled again in response to that of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips—I think it was Amendment No. 33—which he moved but then kindly withdrew on the first day of Report on 16 January. That amendment would have first given individuals the option of whether an audit log should be kept for those occasions when an identity card is checked with the individual's consent under Clause 14—which is now Clause 12, following the various government setbacks or whatever you want to call them.
	For the reasons that my noble friend Lady Scotland gave earlier (at cols. 532–538 of the Official Report for 16 January 2006) it would be wrong to allow for the possibility of individuals deciding for themselves whether some checks against the register should be logged. If that happened, there would be no record to use in cases of complaint, and it would mean that a fraudster trying to use someone else's card could insist that there was no record kept of the transaction.
	At the same time, we have thought again about the second part of the noble Lord's earlier Amendment No. 33, which would make it a requirement to hold details of whenever any information is provided from an individual's entry on the national identity register without consent. That is what we intended to do. Amendment No. 3 will ensure that each occasion on which information is provided from the register without consent must be recorded in the audit log, in Schedule 1(9).
	I hope that, having heard that, the noble Lord will feel reassured. I beg to move.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I have sensations of modified rapture. It is good to have half of one's amendment accepted, and I am genuinely grateful for that. I put on record the fact that the first part of that amendment was important. One of the problems with this Bill, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, in particular will agree, is that it is so complicated and intertwined that it has taken some issues a long time to find expression. Had that come to my mind at an earlier stage, we would then have voted on the first part of the amendment. However, there is no point in doing more than mentioning that.
	The Bill has received conscientious consideration in this House, but several aspects of it, of which this is one, are still deeply unsatisfactory. It is not a protection against fraud to stop any citizen from having the choice on whether utilisation of their card for verification is logged. If a citizen is most motivated by a desire to prevent fraud, he or she will consent to having all the verification uses of his or her ID card logged on the national register. If the citizen is more concerned about privacy—and many are—he or she will choose not to have that logged.
	Having said that, I am grateful for what the Minister said.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, echoing the words of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, I welcome the half of the loaf that has been offered by the Government, but stress that the half they have not granted we think is important. Concerns about how the audit trail may be accessed and used were core to many noble Lords' speeches—certainly to mine—on Second Reading and thereafter. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is right to say that despite the careful attention given by the House during six days in Committee, only on Report were we advised about a particular way to amend Schedule 1 that might meet our concerns about the audit trail.
	It is a measure of the great assistance that we receive from those who advise us outwith this House that we managed to turn that amendment round within an hour of the closing time for tabling amendments that day. We wanted to ensure that we kept within the rules for tabling amendments and not having manuscript amendments, but that meant, ultimately, we were to fall foul of some of the changes in procedure for Third Reading amendments that we now face.
	I notice that the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, is looking concerned. It would have been difficult for us to table an amendment today within the correct rules that would have been robust enough for us to have argued the case, divided and met within the amendment or the concerns expressed by the Government on Report—especially those that have now been expressed in a letter that we only received during the past 24 hours. I do not complain about that, because the Home Office team has done its absolute utmost throughout to ensure that we received replies as soon as possible. However, we are all now more aware of how speedy we need to be in our responses—we will make that clear to those who brief us—and how wary we must be in what we bring to Third Reading. I am therefore grateful to the Government for tabling the amendment, because it means that they are able to fulfil their commitment on Third Reading. We shall watch what happens to the audit trail if and when the Bill is implemented in this exact form.

Lord Mackay of Clashfern: My Lords, I am trying to understand the amendment and I wonder how it deals with paragraph 9(c) of Schedule 1, which states:
	"other particulars, in relation to each such occasion, of the provision of information".
	It strikes me as a little strange to have a compulsory obligation to give other particulars that are unspecified, but the Minister may have the answer.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am not sure that I have the answer to the noble and learned Lord's point, which sounds a good one. I hope that I can satisfy him by dropping him a note.
	I gratefully thank both the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. His "modified rapture" is a term that will now enter my language, because it is a very good one to describe a look of mild contentment on my children's faces across the dinner table. I take the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, in response to our amendment. We have made progress, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, is certainly right that the Bill has received very considered attention in your Lordships' House. For those reasons, the form has been improved. We were grateful for the way in which earlier amendments were tabled, because it has helped us to find a point that satisfies several, if not absolutely every one, of your Lordships who were concerned about the use and the value of the audit log, which we see in essence as a safeguard.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 4:
	Page 4, line 37, leave out from "are" to end of line 46 and insert "passports and residence permits"

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I have explained in advance of today to the government Bill team that the amendment has been tabled primarily to give the Government the opportunity to clarify their intentions about which documents shall be designated under Clause 4.
	If a document is designated, it means that any application for such a document kicks off the process of application for entry by the individual on the national identity register and the obtaining by them of an identity card. I have probed the Government's intentions behind this. I have been told that their current intention is to designate passports, and that they may designate driving licences in future.
	My initial objection to the whole process of designation was based on the Government's plans in the original Bill as it reached this House to force us all to register and to have an ID card from the word go, as soon as any document was designated and we applied for it. My objections to the process of designation will evaporate into thin air if the Government do not seek to overturn the decision of this House on 23 January, when the House agreed Amendment No. 38 at col. 976. That amendment makes it clear that when an individual applies for a designated document, they can choose to go on the register and have an ID card, or they can choose not to do so.
	If, next Monday, the Government seek to overturn the decision of this House and to insist on compulsion in the initial stage of the operation of the register, my objections to Clause 4 would have to remain. I therefore thought that I should raise in the House my concerns about an interview that the Home Secretary gave a couple of weeks ago on Radio 4. He referred to the designation of passports and perhaps applications for a Criminal Records Bureau check. The question must therefore be; what are the Government's intentions with regard to that check?
	I also tabled the amendment to give effect to a private undertaking that I gave to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans last week that I would seek an opportunity for the Government to respond to a question that he had put to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, on 30 January at col. 28—a question which the right reverend Prelate fully accepted was rather wide of the mark of Amendment No. 76. Naturally, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, therefore ignored it.
	The right reverend Prelate asked whether any thought had been given to the impact that the designation of Criminal Records Bureau checks would have on volunteering if, of course, we have the original drafting of Clause 5 at some future stage. He pointed out that if we have the original drafting, it would appear that in order to get Criminal Records Bureau clearance, volunteers in any organisation would have to purchase their own ID card before they can volunteer, and that in the interests of encouraging volunteering, that is surely not the way in which we would wish to go.
	Naturally, the right reverend Prelate would have been here himself, but he was on the duty roster last week and cannot be with us this week, hence my reason for tabling the amendment. I beg to move.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendment. I was a little taken aback by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, who is normally extremely gung-ho on these occasions, seeming to be a touch fatalistic about what might happen to the Bill on Monday in the other place. It might be fatalistic, but if the other place chooses not to support our amendments, we might want to think again.

Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, this is a brief point. At one time there was talk of making the application for a driving licence a trigger, although I think the Government now say that they have no intention of proceeding down that route. I read a report over the weekend which horrified me. It stated that the DVLA had been flogging information to third parties. That alone is a good reason not to use that organisation as a trigger for this Bill in the light of its sensitivity.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, the House will listen to the noble Lord's reply with great interest. The public is beginning to grasp the fact that, when the Bill emerges from the House of Commons, it is likely to make it compulsory to have an identity card when applying for a passport. Some people are wondering whether it will be compulsory to apply for one when getting anything else, such as a driving licence.
	If it is true that the Home Secretary has said that criminal record checks might call for a compulsory card, it is important that the Minister should tell the public that other things will be added to the list of items that would make the issue of an identity card compulsory. The public need to know whether they will have to apply for an identity card on any occasion other than when they apply for a passport or a driving licence. This is now an important political point.

Lord Hylton: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate raised a very important point concerning volunteers— whether they are working in the voluntary services or in the statutory sector. It is already difficult and expensive enough to have the necessary checks made. We really do not need anything that will make the situation worse.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, as ever I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for introducing her amendment and for explaining privately the thinking behind it. I shall come on to the question of designating CRB certificates in due course.
	The amendment would provide that only passports or residence permits could be designated. The Government cannot accept that we should limit the possibility of designating other official documents. Of course the noble Baroness is right to suggest that passports and residence permits for foreign nationals are the key documents we intend to designate. However, we have always said that we want to keep open the option of designating other documents—the example of the driving licence has been cited in this context. There are also other types of immigration documents that might conceivably be designated, rather than limiting the Bill just to residence permits as defined in Clause 26(2). I understand that noble Lords would like to know more precisely how the designation power in Clause 4 is to be used, but the amendment would create an unwelcome limitation on how that power might be used in the future.
	We have already responded to the suggestion from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee by restricting the documents which can be designated to those issued by Crown bodies rather than including documents issued by other bodies under statutory powers. First, I confirm once more that it is the Government's intention to designate British passports issued to United Kingdom residents aged 16 and over so that an identity card could be issued alongside a passport as a package. Secondly, it is intended to designate residence permits and other immigration documents issued to foreign nationals resident in the United Kingdom for more than three months, so that the residence permit itself would become valid as an ID card. Finally, we intend to issue standalone identity cards, but these would be under what is now Clause 6 and would not be affected by this amendment as they would not require the use of the designation power in Clause 4.
	However, as we have always made clear, the legislation should be flexible enough to allow for the possibility of designation of other official documents in the future. Each designation order under Clause 4 will need to be approved by both Houses of Parliament under the affirmative resolution procedure, so this would not be done without the opportunity for proper debate and scrutiny.
	As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans said on Report, the Home Secretary is on record as saying that there is a possibility of linking identity cards to the Criminal Records Bureau check. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, was right to suggest that it was on the "Today" programme that the Home Secretary used the word "perhaps", which indicates that we are far from any definite decision.
	We can be clear that the Government want to retain this option, but there are no definite plans to require people applying for a CRB check to have an identity card. If there was, a key factor that we would have to consider would be who would pay for the identity card for volunteers who currently receive a free CRB check. Of course, people who volunteer may already have obtained an ID card—for example, for use as a travel document—in which case there would be no additional cost. As we have made clear in previous debates, the Bill contains power for exemptions and exceptions, including, and in particular, in relation to fee-setting powers.
	Of course, once we move to the second stage of the scheme when we intend it to be compulsory for everyone to register and obtain an ID card, prospective volunteers would already have an identity card, so there would be no additional step for them to take. We believe that the CRB will be able to transform its working processes once ID cards have been rolled out. For example, it has been estimated that the current four weeks' time for the disclosure process can potentially be reduced to three days, if it is possible for people to prove their identity conclusively through possession of an identity card. Furthermore, having proof of identity will reduce the risk that unsuitable persons are able to gain employment with vulnerable adults or children through the misuse of identity or mistakes being made in identification.
	There have been more than 1,000 occasions since March 2004 where applicant details supplied by the CRB to the police led to conviction details being matched mistakenly with an applicant. As I have said, there are no definite plans for CRB certificates to be designated, but we want to retain the possibility of doing so. I give a commitment that the position of volunteers who presently receive a free CRB check would be examined in detail before any move was made to designate CRB certificates.
	In sum, this amendment would remove the possibility of designating any document unless it was a passport or a residence permit. I hope that I have persuaded noble Lords that this would be too narrow a definition and that the noble Baroness, having heard that, will feel able to withdraw her amendment. I hope that I have made it clear too that we are committed to the designation in due course of passports and residence permits or other immigration documents. We are not presently committed to designation of any other particular documents, but we need to keep that option open. I think that that covers all the points raised during this short debate.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for addressing specifically the question put by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. If the Government go down the route of designating Criminal Records Bureau checks and the Bill is in its initial form, it is important that they should examine carefully the position of volunteers who may be discouraged from coming forward if there is this extra charge on them.
	The noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, is absolutely right to take me to task for being so gloomy. Like him, I ought to have confidence in another place—that it will have listened to the debate here; but, more importantly, that it will have listened to the debate outside this House and therefore will consider again, and that it will withstand government pressures to overturn the decisions made in this place. I certainly hope I can have as much confidence as he does.
	Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope in some corners of the Home Office. I note that the letter we have just received, dated 6 February, refers to the recall of driving licences, something the Minister has referred to. On a couple of occasions I have tried to tease out from the Government whether they intended to overturn the decision of this House on the Road Safety Bill, whereby on 29 November the House removed the Government's power to recall driving licences because we were concerned it could be used as a step for designation.
	Unfortunately, Home Office letters are never page-numbered. Perhaps one day it might manage that. When they are e-mailed to me, I put the page numbers in if I am allowed to. Usually I cannot, however, as the Home Office prevents you making any changes to its documents, so you have to download and save them. I say this because I know there are four keen sets of ears over there listening—so please, what about pagination?
	I shall get back to the important thing. The letter from the Home Office, referring to the fact that we removed that clause from the Road Safety Bill, says that:
	"The Road Safety Bill contained a provision for the compulsory surrender of old-form licences. On 29 November the House of Lords voted to remove this clause from the Bill".
	There is nothing after that. Usually the Government say, "and we're going to seek to overturn it in another place". I suppose they might be keeping their options open, but let us hope this is a signal that the Government are listening, and might not try to shove that back in again. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Clause 12 [Provision of information for verification or otherwise with consent]:

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendment No. 5:
	Page 12, line 34, at insert—
	"( ) The power of the Secretary of State by order to modify subsections (2) and (3) does not include—
	(a) power to omit subsection (2); or
	(b) power to add information falling within paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 to either of those subsections."

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I caution the noble Baroness not to read too much into elliptical comments in letters, but that is for another day.
	Amendment No. 5 has been tabled in response to comments made by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee with regard to Clause 14, now Clause 12 after amendments to the Bill. Clause 12 provides for the provision of information from the register without consent. The information that may be provided is limited to that set out in subsections (2) and (3). There is a delegated power in subsection (4)(a) to modify subsections (2) and (3).
	The committee commented that the power in Clause 12(4)(a) could be used to remove subsections (2) and (3) altogether, thus undermining the safeguard of having only a limited subset of information available under Clause 12. Paragraph (a) in government Amendment No. 5 responds to that concern by ruling out the possibility of subsection (2) being removed altogether. There is no need to expressly prohibit the removal of subsection (3), as that is automatically consequential on the prohibition on the removal of subsection (2).
	Paragraph (b) in the amendment introduces a further safeguard by ruling out the possibility of paragraph 9 information—that is, audit log information—being added to subsection (2). It has never been the Government's intention either to remove subsection (2) or to add the audit log information to that which can be provided under Clause 12. The amendment therefore places limitations on the scope of the delegated powers in Clause 12(4)(a), which are entirely consistent with our policy and, for that reason, appropriate amendments to make. I remind noble Lords that the power in Clause 12(4)(a) is subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, so any additions to subsections (2) or (3) would have to be approved by this House and another place. I beg to move.

Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, on behalf of these Benches, may I say how delighted we are that the noble Lord has seen fit to accept our amendment?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am grateful for that support.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendment No. 6:
	Page 12, line 36, leave out "for the purposes of subsection (1)(a)" and insert "or consent for the purposes of subsection (1)"

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, this again is an amendment inspired by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, who—for someone who has rigorously opposed the Bill—has made a ferociously large number of improvements to it through his tenacity.
	The noble Lord put forward Amendment No. 116A during the last day on Report and we promised we would give further thought to the subject of consent in the context of Clause 12—previously Clause 14—and the power in that to provide information from the register with consent. That amendment sought to provide that all consent must always be given in writing. Similar amendments had been debated at an earlier stage in the passage of the Bill through this House.
	The reason we have resisted all such amendments is that they are simply not practical. There must be flexibility for consent to be demonstrated in a number of ways—for example, the use of a PIN number; agreeing verbally; or, as with a credit card, by handing over an ID card. To allow for nothing other than written consent would be, in our view, unnecessarily bureaucratic.
	As well as raising the issue of written consent, the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, raised the interesting issue of continuing consent. As I said at the time, that requires some further thought. We recognise that the capacity to give continuing consent would be—could be—extremely convenient for cardholders, but also recognise the loss of control that such a facility might entail. We have concluded therefore that continuing consent—and indeed consent in general—should be the subject of further parliamentary scrutiny; I see that the noble Lord is nodding his head in agreement. For that reason we have brought forward the amendment, which provides for a regulation-making power in relation to how consent is to be given for the purpose of Clause 12.
	The amendment has the added benefit of bringing the issue of consent into line with the related issue of authority. There is already a delegated power to make regulations on how an authority is to be given for the purpose of Clause 12. The amendment provides for a parallel power to make regulations on how consent is to be given for the purpose of Clause 12. Both powers are subject to the negative resolution procedure.
	As I have indicated, we envisage consent being given in a number of different ways. However, we are acutely aware of the fact that we must take every step to ensure that the facility of checking the register is one which is not abused, and that consent, when given, is unambiguous and well informed.
	That said, the precise details of how consent may be given will, to a certain extent, depend on the particular requirements of those using the scheme—both cardholders and third-party organisations. Furthermore, those requirements may well develop over time. For those reasons, and on account of the level of detail the necessary provisions might contain, we consider that the question of how consent may be given is one which will be most appropriately dealt with in secondary legislation.
	I remind noble Lords that, as a consequence of government amendments made on Report, it will be compulsory for all organisations wishing to make use of the Clause 12 facility to be accredited by the Secretary of State. The regulations providing for such an accreditation scheme will give Parliament a further opportunity to consider safeguards relating to the power for information to be provided from the register with consent.
	I hope that I have persuaded noble Lords that the important issue of how a person may consent to a check on the register under Clause 12 is one which should rightly be the subject of regulations. I repeat my initial thanks to the noble Lord because the amendment has been very helpful. It underlines the point that in your Lordships' House we can have an intelligent and integrated process of consideration of clauses and subsections to get to the point and improve the quality that is written into law. I beg to move.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of why the amendment is the best way of dealing with the points that I raised earlier. He made the case in a way with which I entirely agree. It takes two to tango and to persevere with some of these rather knotty little issues. I pay tribute to the Bill team, who have been constantly helpful and open-minded. I am very happy to support the amendment.

On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Clause 16 [Prohibition on requirements to produce identity cards]:

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendment No. 7:
	Page 15, line 40, at end insert—
	"(A1) It shall be unlawful to make it a condition of doing anything in relation to an individual that the individual—
	(a) makes an application under section 12(1) for the provision to him of information recorded in his entry in the Register;
	(b) exercises the right conferred by section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998 (c. 29) to obtain information recorded in his entry in the Register; or
	(c) provides a person with information about what is recorded in his entry in the Register."

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, noble Lords may recall that at Report we indicated that we were investigating whether there was a need to widen the safeguard in Clause 16 in order to close a potential loophole. After giving the matter careful thought we concluded that there was such a need. Government Amendments Nos. 7, 8, 9 and 10 are designed to address that need. Noble Lords who have followed the matter closely will recall that Clause 16—Clause 18 as it was previously—is a key safeguard in the Bill. It prohibits organisations from making things conditional on the production of an ID card or a check on the register save in certain circumstances. In essence, the clause prevents compulsion by the back door.
	As drafted, the prohibition relates to a requirement that an ID card be produced, and a requirement that an application under Clause 12 be made or consented to in order that information from the register be provided to the organisation concerned. Government Amendment No. 7 adds three further prohibited scenarios. They are as follows: requiring a person to undertake a subject access request under Section 7 of the Data Protection Act; requiring a person to make an application under Clause 12 for information to be provided to him, the cardholder, from his entry on the register—that scenario is distinct from what is already provided for in Clause 16(1)(a) because the information would be being provided to the cardholder not directly to the organisation concerned—and requiring a person to provide information about what is recorded in his entry on the register. This scenario is something of a catch-all. It would cover, for example, forcing people to produce printouts of their entries on the register obtained using the secure online facility.
	It should be noted that these three scenarios are absolutely prohibited. Unlike the scenarios set out in Clause 16(1), these prohibitions do not fall away in the circumstances set out in subsection (2); that is, where the cardholder is subject to compulsory registration; where alternative methods of establishing identity are allowed for; or where the requirement relates to the provision of a public service and has been imposed by legislation.
	The absolute nature of the new prohibitions is particularly important in respect of accreditation. As noble Lords will be aware, we have amended the Bill so that information may not be provided to a person under Clause 12 unless he is accredited with the Secretary of State. Government Amendment No. 7 ensures that an organisation cannot avoid accreditation by requiring the cardholder to have the information provided to himself and then pass it on to the organisation. Government Amendments Nos. 8, 9 and 10 are all consequential on government Amendment No. 7.
	I hope that noble Lords recognise that these amendments represent an important and necessary tightening up of the crucial safeguard in Clause 16. I beg to move.

Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, once again I thank the noble Lord for the concession that he promised at Report on 30 January. Therefore, it gives me great pleasure to support these amendments.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendments Nos. 8 to 10:
	Page 15, line 41, after "shall" insert "also"
	Page 15, line 44, at end insert "in order to secure the provision to another person of information recorded in the individual's entry in the Register"
	Page 16, line 3, leave out "such a condition or requirement" and insert "a condition or requirement referred to in subsection (1)"
	On Question, amendments agreed to.
	Clause 22 [Appointment of National Identity Scheme Commissioner]:

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 11:
	Page 20, line 40, at end insert—
	"( ) There shall be a Commissioner appointed by Her Majesty."

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 11 and 12 are grouped together in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. They deal with an error that slipped into the Bill at the previous stage when I moved an amendment to what was then Clause 24, providing that the National Identity Scheme Commissioner should be appointed not by the Secretary of State but by the Crown. The House voted in favour of that amendment, but I now discover that the language was not right and that the reference should be to Her Majesty rather than to the Crown. These amendments were drafted by and with the approval of the Government and the draftsmen. I beg to move.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, since my name is on the amendments I also thank the Government for their assistance in ensuring that the drafting is correct.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, we do not intend to oppose the amendments. They are drafting changes to an amendment accepted following a Division. Our position is that we do not believe that it is necessary or appropriate for the National Identity Scheme Commissioner to be appointed by Her Majesty. However, we think it is right and proper that any drafting errors should be corrected. For those reasons we are happy to support the amendments.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 12:
	Page 20, line 41, leave out from beginning to "be" in line 42 and insert "The Commissioner shall"
	On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Clause 23 [Reports by Commissioner]:

Lord Crickhowell: moved Amendment No. 13:
	Page 22, line 10, at end insert—
	"( ) For the avoidance of doubt, in a report made under subsection (2) the Commissioner may include information regarding the viability and cost effectiveness of the information technology and support systems used for the National Identity Register and ID cards."

Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, I am moving the amendment, which stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Northesk, because at this late stage we have been confronted with an alarming situation that has been brought to our attention by the publication of the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the Home Office resource accounts 2004–05. During the long examination of the Bill grave doubts were expressed about the Government's ability to run the integrated IT systems required to manage the register and to make full use of the material it will contain or to guarantee the security and integrity of the information about every citizen that will be placed compulsorily on the register. Those doubts have been dismissed by Ministers as groundless.
	At the same time the Government have failed to provide information about costs and benefits in a manner that this House has judged to be satisfactory. I argued on Report, as did the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, that an honest answer to our questions would have been that the Government did not have the faintest idea what the costs would be. The House hoped that by insisting that what is now Clause 44 should be inserted in the Bill, which requires information about costs to be provided to another place before the project can proceed, it had provided effective protection against gross waste and misuse. We now have compelling evidence that it would be reckless of Parliament to allow responsibility for the direction and management of the ID cards scheme to remain with the Home Office and its agencies without additional safeguards. The accounts of the UK Passport Service are among a number of others consolidated with the accounts of the core department.
	We are confronted by the deplorable situation that the Comptroller and Auditor General has had to inform Parliament that a major department of state, the Home Office, has not met the statutory reporting timetable in respect of its 2004–05 resource accounts; and that he has not been able to reach an opinion as to whether the accounts show a true and fair view. The primary reason for that extraordinary state of affairs is that the Home Office has proved incapable of using Adelphi, its new Oracle-based integrated finance, human resources and procurement system. Let us be clear about this; Adelphi is not some entirely novel, ground-breaking and uniquely complicated IT system. It is the kind of accounting, human resources and procurement system that would be familiar to most large commercial and government organisations worldwide.
	The first draft consolidated accounts were delivered 10 weeks late. I quote from paragraph 10 of the auditor general's report:
	"These accounts contain numerous errors and internal inconsistencies. In particular, amounts relating to cash, Exchequer funding and non retainable income due to the Consolidated Fund were contradictory and did not reconcile between the different places in which they appeared in the accounts. There were also material omissions and misstatements".
	I quote again, this time from paragraph 14:
	"Difficulties were encountered in the transfer and cleansing of data, and staff were not trained to use the new system on a timely basis. These problems and delays, together with a lack of understanding of the new accounting system, meant that the Home Office could not use data from its new accounting system effectively to produce a cogent set of accounts to the required faster closing and statutory timetables".
	Reviews carried out by the Home Office's own internal audit unit and by the auditor general's staff found—and I quote from paragraph 15—
	"Control weaknesses within key Information Technology applications including access to the system, inadequate segregation of duties, the creation of standing data and the ability to interrogate and monitor changes made. These weaknesses made access to the database by unauthorised staff possible, representing a risk to the integrity of Adelphi data and exposing the Home Office to a greater risk of fraud and error".
	That paragraph is particularly serious in the context of the ID cards scheme. Even if steps are now being taken to address those weaknesses, it confirms what we have been saying; that it is not just the technology that is important but the quality of the training and management of the people using it. Failures that have exposed the integrity of the Adelphi data to risk and the Home Office to fraud and error can equally well expose the register data and the citizens whose names are contained in it. It is ironic that one of the principal arguments advanced by Ministers for their scheme is that it will reduce the risk of fraud.
	The scale of the disaster is almost unbelievable. I quote from paragraph 11, which refers to the second draft accounts, which were delivered two days late:
	"The amounts in the revised accounts had changed significantly from the first draft. In particular nearly every major balance was markedly different. To illustrate the scale of the movements: the amount owed to the Exchequer by the Home Office of £68 million in the September draft accounts became an amount owed by the Exchequer to the Home Office of £112 million in the December draft accounts. This swing is due to major changes elsewhere in the accounts resulting in a change to the cash required by Home Office".
	Because the Home Office was incapable of implementing its new accounting system, it,
	"has been unable to reconcile its cash at bank position".
	I quote from paragraph 16:
	"Bank reconciliations are one of the most fundamental of all accounting controls as they enable payments, receipts and cash balances to be validated to an external source and provide assurance about debtor and creditor balances. They are also a key control for the prevention and detection of fraud".
	Four other references in the auditor general's report are equally lethal. They are listed in paragraphs 21 and 22:
	"Poor controls and weaknesses in the audit trails maintained over the assignment of access rights; absence of checks made against Human Resources records to ensure that new users are authorised, and leavers are removed promptly; an absence of controls to detect unauthorised access to the database; over-reliance on the Home Office contractor to undertake security checks, and a lack of effective processes to address the risks this exposes the Department to".
	It would appear that the Home Office has not arrived in the age of technology and the computer. If its staff were still on high stools and using quill pens, they could hardly have made a worse job of their resource accounts. No doubt the auditor general will report if future Home Office accounts and those relating to the ID cards scheme repeat this shambles. Clause 44 requires him to report on the estimate of scheme costs to be submitted to another place. But it is essential that Parliament should require the National Identity Scheme Commissioner to keep under close review, and regularly report on, the training and management competence of those running the IT systems, and to give reassurance that the integrity and security of the information held on the register are being adequately safeguarded. I beg to move.

The Earl of Northesk: My Lords, my name is attached to this amendment, moved so ably by my noble friend. Needless to say, therefore, I support it. My noble friend is quite right to draw our attention to the decision of the Comptroller and Auditor General not to endorse the Home Office's accounts. As he said, this demonstrates how little faith we can have in its ability to deliver the ID card project, either technologically or within budget. The case that he made is deeply persuasive, and I need not embellish his remarks. Rather, I shall add some further insights about this matter which have surfaced during the past few days.
	First, as my noble friend Lady Anelay pointed out earlier, the Home Office released with great fanfare last week its updated figure for the cost to the country of identity fraud, totalling £1.7 billion. Supposedly, the report builds on the previous study from 2002, which claimed that identity theft was then costing some £1.3 billion a year. In light of the report, the Home Office Minister, Andy Burnham, made the bold claim:
	"One way we can reduce the potential for identity fraud is to introduce a national identity card, backed by a National Identity Register".
	It is all the more unfortunate, therefore, that the figures are pure bunkum.
	The report is riddled with inconsistencies and flawed methodology. For example, it includes the sum of £62.8 million, attributable to the cost of administering security and ID checks and combating fraud in passport applications by the UK Passport Service. Do we therefore assume that the sum of £584 million that is so often quoted by the Government as the annual running cost of the identity register and ID cards should be viewed as a legitimate "cost" of identity fraud? But perhaps most telling is the claim, already cited by my noble friend Lady Anelay, that £504.8 million arises from identity fraud-related abuse of credit cards. Clearly, this figure has been sourced from APACS, the card payments body, but as its spokesman, Mark Bowerman, has subsequently revealed, the ID fraud element of the total amounted to just £36.9 million in 2004 and, during the first six months of 2005, it dropped by 16 per cent, principally as a result of the introduction of chip and PIN. Indeed, when all the non-ID fraud figures are taken out of the calculations, the total annual cost of ID fraud is £494 million, although a further £372 million of that is an undefined sum attributed to losses across the telecoms industry. One wonders therefore whether KPMG would be quite so willing to describe the cost assumptions and methodology as "robust".
	That said, while resentful of this misleading attempt to prey on people's fears, I can accept that ID fraud is a growing menace. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the Minister's earlier comments, we need to recognise—and this simple fact is generally accepted within the industry—that of themselves, ID cards cannot and will not have any significant beneficial effect in countering credit card fraud, not least because it will not be compulsory to carry them. Indeed, the widely respected LSE report and other commentators within the industry have accurately pointed out that ID cards could exacerbate the problem.
	In that context, news also surfaced at the weekend that Simon Davies, who the Government have consistently and repeatedly vilified for his involvement with the LSE Identity Project, has written to the Prime Minister indicating his possible intention to pursue the matter in the courts should such defamation be repeated. As his letter states, the fact is that:
	"More than sixty academics and a further forty external experts have contributed to the LSE work".
	That being so, is the Minister prepared to take this opportunity on behalf of the Government to retract the outrageous slurs perpetrated against Mr Davies and offer an apology?
	All in all, these matters are of a piece with the relentless litany of spin born of a misguided sense of political expediency, and are unsubstantiated by the available evidence that has spewed out of the Home Office over the past few years in respect of ID cards. I am sure that throughout our scrutiny of the Bill, all of us have had but one wish—namely, that the Government publish their own detailed—I stress, detailed—system architecture, cost-benefit analyses, project risk assumptions and so on. After all, to quote a phrase, "if they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear".
	I support the amendment.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, my noble friends have delivered a devastating critique of the implications of last week's NAO report on the operation of ID cards. I support what they have said.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I rise to sing the same tune. Why should there be any objection to the amendment, even if the Government deny a good deal of what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, and the noble Earl, Lord Northesk? The amendment contains sensible provisions that I would have thought would aid and abet the work of the commissioner.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, perhaps I should start with the adoption and use by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, of the National Audit Office report as a way of attacking the financial viability of the scheme and the ability of the Home Office to run and organise an ID cards scheme.
	There is no disputing the NAO report. It is clear. It is in the public domain and we do not seek to run away or hide from its import or effect. The NAO press release states:
	"The Home Office has recognised the need to strengthen its financial control framework and to improve its financial statements preparation processes to enable it to meet its accountability obligations to Parliament".
	The press release sets out the actions that the Home Office has taken. They are, the report continues,
	"the redesign and restructuring of its financial accounting function . . . continuing work on 2004–05 account in order to provide a more robust basis for preparing a timely account for 2005–06 . . . commissioning a review to determine the factors that prevented the timely preparation of the 2004–05 accounts and the further action that is required, which will report to the Audit Committee; and ensuring that focus is maintained on financial control environment through close monitoring".
	Those seem to be entirely right and absolutely proper, and the Home Office is addressing the issues that have rightly been raised in what we all recognise as being an important critique of the financial control framework.
	It is also worth making clear at this stage that the delivery of the identity card scheme will be by a new agency, which, as we have said many times, will be based on the United Kingdom Passport Service, which is a Next Steps agency. It is worth pointing out to your Lordships' House that the UK Passport Service prepares separate accounts from those of the Home Office and that those accounts have received an appropriate certificate from the National Audit Office in each year since the agency was created. It is to the credit of the UK Passport Service that its performance year on year improves. It is also worth pointing out that the latest accounts—those for 2004–05—have been approved as well.
	One should also focus on our intentions for proper and independent scrutiny of the ID cards scheme specifically. We made it clear on Report that there will be an independent assurance panel, which will include IT and financial oversight, and a biometric assurance panel. We will consult continuously the public and private sectors and special needs user groups and we will seek the advice of the scheme commissioner so that we have a comprehensive accountability framework that ensures that the thing works, that it is delivered on budget and that timely accounts are produced.
	I do not wish to detract overly from the critique of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, based on his import into this debate of the National Audit Office commentary on the Home Office, but the effect of the amendment, as I understand it, would be fairly minimal. It would clarify on the face of the Bill that the National Identity Scheme Commissioner could, if he so wished, include in his report information relating to the viability and cost-effectiveness of the information technology and support systems used for the national identity register and ID cards themselves. However, we argue that that is simply unnecessary. The commissioner's jurisdiction as regards the Secretary of State is set out in Clause 22(2)(a), which refers to,
	"the arrangements for the time being maintained by the Secretary of State for the purposes of his functions under this Act or the subordinate legislation made under it".
	That subsection covers all the Secretary of State's functions under this legislation. As we have indicated in previous debates, the word "arrangements" does not place limitations on the extent to which the commissioner may have regard to the substance of the matters that he is required to keep under review. The only limitations on the commissioner's remit are those set out in Clause 22(4). As we have said before, all those matters come under somebody else's jurisdiction. There is nothing in the Bill that would prevent the commissioner from looking at the matters referred to in the amendment.
	On Report, in response to the concerns of a number of noble Lords, we brought forward a government amendment that clarified the fact that the commissioner's remit includes consideration of the integrity and confidentiality of the information on the register, as well as consideration of the complaints procedure. We do not consider it necessary or desirable to make any further clarifications. If we were to list expressly all the matters that Clause 22(2) already covers, the Bill would be considerably and—given what noble Lords have said about the Bill—unnecessarily longer. The Bill as it is will enable the commissioner to comment on the issues that the amendment covers.
	We accept the contents of the National Audit Office report on the accounts of the Home Office generally. Specifically, the UK Passport Service, around which the new agency will be based, has a very good track record with regard to IT management, accounting and its ability to deliver on time and on budget. For those reasons, we cannot accept the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell.
	The noble Earl, Lord Northesk, is not convinced by the latest published figure on identity fraud. However, as I said before, the published figure of £1.7 billion has been agreed with relevant stakeholders. The noble Earl accepts, as he said in his commentary on the amendment, that identity fraud and financial fraud are considerable matters. I repeat that these worry people. We believe that the ID card scheme will make a significant contribution in tackling ID fraud and will help those who are determined to track it down and to detect it, to minimise it. It rests as a cost on all of us who make use of banking, credit card and debit card services. It is down to the Government to take responsibility, to tackle those issues, to provide such reassurance as an ID card scheme can and to assist those who enforce the law in tackling fraud and abuse.
	We cannot accept the amendment tabled by the noble Lord. Having heard what I have said, I hope that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his gallant defence of his accounting office and his department. He did as well as he could in the circumstances. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said that he might deny some of the charges I have made. It would be very hard for him to deny them as they were almost all taken directly from the report of the auditor general.
	My second point is that it would be totally shocking if the Home Office had failed to recognise the need to strengthen its financial control framework and to improve its financial statements preparation processes to enable it to meet its accountability obligations to Parliament. In view of the scale of the failure, I believe that there would have been considerable trouble and I suspect that the new accounting officer would have been facing a very embarrassing situation indeed.
	Thirdly, we are always told how wonderful the UK Passport Service is, but as the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, reminded the House on a previous occasion, it got off to a pretty shambolic start a few years ago. While I acknowledge that it has greatly improved, its record has not been perfect throughout. Finally, I entirely accept that the commissioner is, under the Bill, able to report on these matters. Now that this matter has been drawn to his attention, I hope he will know that he has the encouragement of this House, and that that is exactly what he will do. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Clause 34 [Code of practice on penalties]:

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendment No. 14:
	Page 30, leave out lines 33 and 34 and insert "must be considered when determining—
	(a) whether a civil penalty should be imposed under this Act; and
	(b) the amount of such a penalty."

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I can speak more briefly on this amendment. The amendment makes it clear that the code of practice on civil penalties should be taken into account when it is being considered whether a penalty should be imposed, and not just what the amount of a penalty should be. As noble Lords who have read the draft code and participated in previous debates will know, we have always intended that this should be the case. The amendment simply puts that beyond doubt by clarifying, on the face of the Bill, the scope of the code. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, for his improving and constructive suggestions in this regard. I beg to move.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I thank the Minister for tabling this amendment which achieves exactly the purpose that my earlier and less meritorious amendment sought to achieve. The only residual point is that I suggest that the heading to Clause 34 should now be reworded, although I understand that one cannot tinker with the wording of the title of clauses in the form of amendments. I serve notice that it should now refer to "Code of practice" or "Code of practice on penalties etc". The "etc" is a formulation used in other clauses and would at least make it clear that it is not just about the penalty.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord. He is right about headings—they are not susceptible to amendment—but we shall take account of his comment.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 15:
	Page 30, line 41, at end insert—
	"(4A) Before a draft code under this section is laid before Parliament, the Secretary of State must take such steps as he thinks fit—
	(a) for securing that members of the public in the United Kingdom are informed about the proposed code; and
	(b) for consulting them about it."

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, Amendment No. 15 continues the improvement to Clause 34 which was started by the previous amendment. Clause 34, which was Clause 36 in the Bill before it came here, is a very important clause. I think that the whole House has always recognised that, as it provides for a code of practice regarding the whole regime for the imposition and quantification of penalties. Unfortunately, penalties will be germane to this legislation. They are considerable penalties—£1,000 or £2,500—and, as the Government have indicated, a normal first-time penalty will be a quarter of the maximum. So, even at a maximum of £1,000, we are talking of a £250 fine for—for example—failing to notify a change of address.
	To be fair to the Government, they have gone to lengths to assure the House that this provision will not be like some traffic cameras, which are an alternative way of generating revenue, and that the Government will be extremely long-suffering and pragmatic and only levy penalties where it really is a case of incorrigibility—let us put it that way. I am perfectly ready to accept that, provided two things happen. The first is that the code reflects that sentiment. I think that the draft code broadly reflects that approach—for example, it gives substantial significance to an aspect of the whole regime, which is not referred to in the relevant clauses, in that it gives a warning to the citizen before he or she is penalised. That is to say, it does not simply rely, as you might think from the Bill, on the citizen's right of appeal once a penalty has been awarded at a distance and without having heard what the citizen has to say. So, that is in the code.
	The point of the amendment is to ensure that there is consultation. On Amendment No. 14 the Minister made the point that there will be a continuous consultation, on this part of the Bill in particular. I want to see that provision plumb on the statute. It is already on the statute regarding the matters dealt with in Clause 15, which deals with checks on the register and information from the register. I borrowed the language from the consultation subsection in Clause 15 for the amendment. I hope that for all those reasons the Government will agree with me, and with the noble Baroness whose name is attached to this amendment, that this provision is better in the Bill. On that basis, I beg to move.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, my name is attached to this amendment in support. I noticed that when we debated the matter on 30 January the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, at col. 70, said that he had sympathy with the purpose of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, and that the Government intended to consult extensively on the code. He also said that the Government had already prepared an initial draft which had been placed in the Library on 9 December, and that it was on the identity cards website.
	The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is trying to ensure that members of the public are informed clearly about the proposals in the Bill and that they have easy access to the information. So, in the course of those few moments that one had idle at the weekend in between preparing for this Bill and the asylum Bill tomorrow, I went on to the website pretending that I had never accessed the Home Office website before and pretending it is not on my favourites list to see whether I could easily find this draft letter. It is not easy to find.
	Perhaps I may suggest that signposting on Home Office websites needs to be a lot better for members of the public to follow. Otherwise they could spend—I would not say waste—time. I spent 10 minutes trawling through before I went to where I knew I would find it. But I had to know where it was. Does that not underline what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, was saying that there should be something clearly here to ensure that the public are consulted and that they are informed about these matters?

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, this is a matter that members of the public should really know about clearly. It should not only be those who enjoy playing with computers and think of going to the Home Office website to find out what penalties there are. If one is really subject to £250 for not registering a change of address, a great many people are going to be involved in these penalties. It will be widespread, and will cause enormous discontent when people discover that this happens. The more publicity and public knowledge about this matter the better, from the Government's point of view. I suggest that this amendment or something like it should be in the Bill.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, Amendment No. 15 would have the effect of requiring the Secretary of State to consult members of the public about the draft code of practice before it is laid before Parliament. As the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said, I was sympathetic towards this at an earlier stage, and that remains the case. As we have already said, we always had the intention of consulting the public on the code of practice, largely for the reasons which have been averred to in this debate, because we want people to know. We want to make sure that that consultation takes place before it is laid before Parliament.
	The Government have consulted the public both on the principle of identity cards in 2002 and more recently on the draft Bill that was published in 2004. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, told us about some of her Sunday afternoon activities. It is the sort of thing I occasionally do, though I do not browse the Home Office website extensively on Sunday afternoons— sometimes I watch the football. Currently the draft code of practice is on the ID cards website. The public are free to comment on it if they so choose. I am told by the Bill team that many of them are already doing exactly that. Perhaps the noble Baroness has had some difficulty getting through the various links, but clearly the public have not been so badly put off. We accept that the noble Baroness has a point, and obviously one can improve signposting on websites. By and large, the Home Office site, often the focus of criticism in these matters, is reasonably easy to travel through. We certainly intend further to perfect what is there and will work to improve it because we want people to understand exactly what is being done in their name.
	We are persuaded by the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, on this matter and are grateful to him for suggesting it. We intend to accept his amendment. Government Amendment No. 16 is consequential on that and has the effect that any revisions of the code of practice will also be subject to the requirement to consult. I am sure the noble Lord will be happy with that.
	Amendment No. 17, again a government amendment, has the effect that the order bringing into force the first draft of the code of practice that is laid before Parliament will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. Our Amendment No. 18 is consequential on that. It has the effect of clarifying that orders bringing into force all subsequent drafts will continue to be subject to the negative resolution procedure. The Government have tabled Amendment No. 17 in response to the noble Lord's earlier raising of the issue. The amendment does not go as far as the noble Lord's amendment tabled at Report stage, as that would have had the effect of requiring all drafts of the code to be brought into force by way of the affirmative resolution procedure. That would have meant that any revision of the code would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. Even the most minor or technical revision of the code of practice would need to be brought into force by way of affirmative order. We do not think that is necessary or a good use of parliamentary time. I suspect the noble Lord would agree with us in some particulars.
	As we have made clear, the civil penalties regime is intended to encourage compliance. It is not intended as a punishment, although as the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, made clear in her comments, people need to understand that point. We have made clear in the code that once a requirement has been complied with any penalty will normally be waived and that should be the end of the matter.
	We accept the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. Our amendments are essentially consequential, so in accepting his amendment, I commend the government amendments in the same group.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am grateful.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendments Nos. 16 to 18:
	Page 31, line 4, after "(4)" insert ", (4A)"
	Page 31, line 5, at end insert—
	"( ) The power of the Secretary of State to make an order containing (with or without other provision) a provision authorised by this section is exercisable, on the first occasion on which an order is made under this section, only if a draft of the order has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House."
	Page 31, line 6, leave out "under this section" and insert "which—
	"(a) contains provisions that the Secretary of State is authorised to make by this section, and
	(b) is not an order a draft of which is required to have been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House,"
	On Question, amendments agreed to.
	Clause 35 [Fees in respect of functions carried out under Act]:

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 19:
	Page 31, line 10, at beginning insert "Save as provided for in subsection (1A),"

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 19 and 20 are together intended to ensure that any citizen wanting to check the register to ensure that the verifiable facts are accurate can do so without having to pay a fee. I was moved to table these amendments late in the day by our conversation on Report, when the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, made clear that for some searches the normal Data Protection Act fee of £10 would be required. That stuck in my gullet until it was explained to me that there are two quite different sorts of access to the register. One is to check what is mainstream information about you on the register; the other is to get into the considerable body of other information set out in Schedule 1. For example, earlier I mentioned validation information, security information, record history and stuff like that.
	I was not aware until late in the day that the register will contain on it all the information that the registrar obtains from you and me when we apply to go on it—for example, all the answers given to the questions asked of us to verify the key facts. I am just about willing to accept that one should have to pay to access that. However, it would not be fair, right or just—especially if and when the whole scheme becomes compulsory—for you and I to be required to provide information and then to be charged for checking that it is correct in our file on the register.
	I thought that the way to distinguish between those two types of information was to use the Bill. The reason that the amendment refers to Clause 12 is that that sets out information that can be accessed for the purposes of verifying key facts about you as an individual with your consent. The categories of information are set out in Clause 12(2)—there are eight sub-headings. I hope that the House will share my belief that I should be able to check at any time for no fee or charge that that information on the register is still accurate. I beg to move.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 19 and 20 would require that an individual could be provided with any information listed under Clause 12(2) free of charge. Throughout the Bill's passage, we have made clear that we intend to implement a two-tier process to allow an individual to review the record on the register.
	The first tier would, subject to secure identification of the individual, involve a free secure online facility that would allow an individual to check personal details on their record, as well as their recent verifications on their audit log, subject to Data Protection Act exclusions. I reiterate that this is an application facility. It does not mean that the individual will have direct access to the register via the Internet. However, it is intended to serve as a convenient service to provide the individual with reassurance that their details are accurate and that abuse of their information could be easily detected.
	The second tier follows the subject data access request process as outlined by the Data Protection Act. This would provide a full written record of all information held on the individual, subject to DPA provisions. This would include additional information; for example, records from the audit log that were not recent. There may be a charge of up to £10 for this request, as permitted by the Data Protection Act.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has explained, the intention behind these amendments would be to reflect in the Bill the first tier of this approach. I am happy to give a commitment to the House that it is the Government's intention to provide this free service. However, we believe it would be inappropriate to reflect this in the Bill as the amendments suggest. That level of detail is inappropriate at the current stage of the development of the ID cards scheme.
	The amendment may not necessarily reflect the service that is demanded by the public. For example, the amendments refer to the information listed under Clause 12(2). However, this is drafted to reflect the likely need for verification services, not for subject data access. Thus, it is unlikely that some of the technical information involved in confirming a person's record, as mentioned in Clause 12(2), would be of interest. On the other hand, some information from the audit log is likely to be of interest but is not covered under Clause 12(2). I say this not to criticise the noble Lord's drafting but simply to highlight the importance of working out the precise needs of users in this regard. That is pretty central to their intelligent use of the service.
	As the development of the scheme progresses, further work needs to be done to specify the exact design of the service based on feedback from potential users. We do not want to design a system that no one finds useful or that becomes surplus to requirements. Furthermore, as the identity card scheme progresses through its procurement processes, further issues may arise that need to be considered before the online facility's eventual design can be finalised. Thus, it is simply too hasty to place details of the service in the Bill, as the amendment would do.
	Finally, I note that the amendments do not necessarily reflect the Government's commitment in this regard. We have informed the House of our intention to offer an online service, subject to secure authentication methods. The amendment implies that the service may not simply be online. Naturally, that would have consequences for both the design of the scheme and for the cost of running the service, and would need the Government's further consideration.
	I have some sympathy with the noble Lord's desire to ensure that an individual can view the key pieces of their record on the register without fuss, bother or interference. We certainly share that desire and are working to achieve it in practice, but for the reasons that I explained to the House, it is simply not appropriate to try to specify the design of this service in the Bill in the way in which the noble Lord suggests. It is, however, something that we will want to do at some point in the future. For those reasons, and not because of any rampant opposition to the noble Lord's point, I hope that he will withdraw his amendment this afternoon.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am very grateful for that full explanation. Not being much of a techie chap, I am not sure that I took it all in, but I think that I did, and that I found it entirely reasonable. Before I withdraw my amendment, I simply ask the Minister this. Widow Brown, my former neighbour, certainly has no machinery with which to access this through the web and so on. If in the future she wants to check that her name, address and basic particulars held on the register are accurate, she will have to do that by post. Is it the general intention on the part of the Government not to charge for this? Does it mean that she and many older people like her will not be charged for checking that what is on register is accurate?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, that is our intention. If Widow Brown, the late neighbour of the noble Lord—or perhaps she has moved elsewhere—does not have personal access to the Internet from her home, she may at least be able to gain access via her local library or by another public service provided locally. By those means she would have relatively easy access, and, as the noble Lord said, she would be able to write as well.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am grateful for that reassurance and I am happy to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 20 not moved.]

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: moved Amendment No. 21:
	Before Clause 39, insert the following new clause—
	"PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL OVER UNITED KINGDOM ID CARDS
	(1) No international body may impose on any United Kingdom citizen the duty to attend or to have attended at any place for the purposes of the issue, or in connection with preparations for the issue, of an ID card; and a United Kingdom citizen shall have free passage throughout the United Kingdom and the member states of the European Union without the need to fulfil any such obligation, except as shall have been agreed, or determined, by statute in the United Kingdom.
	(2) No Minister of the Crown may enter into any undertaking within the European Union to introduce an ID card scheme or identity register in the United Kingdom, or propose or agree any common standards in relation to such a scheme, without the consent of Parliament."

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, under guidance from the Public Bill Office I have retabled part of the amendment I moved on Report on 30 January, which was the same as that moved by my noble friend Lady Anelay on 12 December last year. I do so in order to clarify some remaining uncertainties over how far the United Kingdom may have moved towards joining an EU identity card system behind the back of the House of Commons and your Lordships' House.
	Since our debate last week I have received a Written Answer from the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, which helps to clarify the position. It was published on 31 January. The Answer reiterates what the noble Baroness said in Committee, in her letter to me dated 10 January, and on Report on 30 January, to the effect that Title IV of the TEC covering visas, asylum and immigration, and other policies related to the free movement of persons, does not specifically refer to identity cards. So we all agree about that. She then sums up the Government position as follows:
	"In addition, the UK is only bound by Title IV measures if it chooses to opt into them, so even if a measure providing for EU ID cards could be adopted under Title IV, the UK would have a choice whether to participate in the measure and thus whether to be bound by it".
	I submit that this is an important step towards transparency because for the first time the Government admit that Title IV could produce an EU ID card system. So I am glad we all now agree about that too. However, the Government still contend that they have not yet opted the UK into such a system, whereas in our previous exchanges I have been probing the possibility that by signing up to Council Decision 15226/04, they have in effect done so. These are murky waters, but I have now consulted senior constitutional counsel and he tends towards the Government's position. In other words, although through agreeing to be part of Council Decision 15226/04 the Government have agreed that decisions under Title IV—particularly under Article 62(2)(a), which I quoted on Report and is the one most likely to justify an EU ID card system—will in future be taken by QMV to the extinction of our veto, the Government have not yet opted specifically into an EU ID card system.
	I am happy to go along with this view, but fear it does not give much comfort. I am advised that all that is now required for the United Kingdom to be irretrievably part of such a scheme, the operation of which would be decided by QMV under which the Government have some 8 per cent of the vote, would be a simple letter from the Home Office to Brussels saying that the United Kingdom would like to join. That letter would not be placed before Parliament for approval. It would be a simple, secret, executive missive. We would then be bound to the scheme, which would be agreed by QMV.
	If some of us complain, or even if Parliament complains, we will be told in time-honoured EU fashion that we were warned, that we should have made a fuss earlier, but that now it is too late. Of course, it will be too late, which is why I am trying to make a fuss now. This is a beautiful example in the making of how the corrupt octopus gets its tentacles around ever-larger portions of our sovereignty.
	At the end of our debate on Report last week, I asked the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, a double-barrelled question. I asked her to give a clear assurance, first, that the Government had not opted into an EU ID card system and, secondly, that they would not do so. Now at Third Reading, I would like to clarify the noble Baroness's answer by asking the questions separately. First, will the Minister confirm that the Government have not yet written that letter and so have not yet opted into an EU ID card system? I feel confident that he will be able to confirm that that is the case. The second question may be a little more difficult for him. He may feel that his noble friend answered it last time when she said that she would not bind the Government for many years in a way that is improper. But how could it be improper to guarantee that the United Kingdom will not become part of an EU ID card system controlled by Brussels? Surely, that would be an entirely proper guarantee to give, which would be wholly popular with the British people. Any EU ID card would surely be extremely unpopular.
	To clarify the position further, it should not be too difficult for the noble Lord to give that guarantee now. After all, both in her letter to me of 10 January and in her speech on Report last week, the noble Baroness assured your Lordships that Parliament remains supreme in any decision to introduce ID cards in this country. Her letter states:
	"There is no question of ID cards being introduced by fiat from Brussels".
	On 30 January she said:
	"Unless and until primary legislation concerning ID cards is brought before this Parliament, there will be no ID cards in the United Kingdom".—[Official Report, 30/1/06; cols. 87–88.]
	If the Government mean that, why will they not undertake not to sign us up to an EU ID card system in Brussels? Surely, they would only be fulfilling an undertaking already given at earlier stages of the Bill. I look forward to the noble Lord's reply in clarification of their position.
	Finally, I should clarify a point that I touched on at Report when I mentioned that Brussels could use Title V, being Articles 70 to 80 of the TEC—the common transport policy—as an alternative route to introduce an EU ID card if it so wished. The United Kingdom does not have any form of opt out from that policy, which is decided by QMV and which empowers the council to lay down,
	"common rules applicable to international transport to or from the territory of a member state or passing across the territory of one or more member states",
	which is a quote from Article 71(a). Article 71(d) allows the council to dictate "any other appropriate provisions".
	I understand that the EU driving licence was developed from Article 71(c), which covers,
	"measures to improve transport safety",
	so I fear that it is not far fetched to suggest that EU ID cards could be introduced under Title V against which, as I have mentioned, we have no protection. There is also the suggestion, as has been mentioned in our debates so far and during the debate on Amendment No. 4 today, that EU driving licences might develop into an EU identity card, or something very like it. So I would be grateful to learn from the noble Lord whether the Government disagree with that analysis and why.
	These are my three questions for the noble Lord. First, will he assure your Lordships that the Government have not yet sent a letter opting into an EU ID card system? Secondly, if Parliament is to remain sovereign in this area, will he undertake that the Government will not do so in future? Thirdly, is there any reason why Brussels should not introduce an EU ID card system under the common transport policy as an alternative to Title IV? I beg to move.

Lord Waddington: My Lords, I shall not be as detailed as my noble friend was in his eloquent and erudite speech. I shall make a short general political point. I have noticed that in recent Ministers' replies to Questions about the burdens imposed on British citizens by the EU there have been fewer attempts to defend the totally indefensible and to present utterly ludicrous proposals as in Britain's interests, and there have been more references to the fact that we have to obey regulations that have been thrust upon us because of majority voting, even though they are ridiculous. That was the tone of the Minister's reply a week ago to a Question about tallow burning.
	It occurs to me that the Government could avoid adding to their embarrassments by proceeding in the way suggested by my noble friend in the amendment and promising not to take on any further major obligations of the kind mentioned in the amendment unless the need for them has first been endorsed by Parliament. If Parliament's agreement was not forthcoming, the Government would find Parliament's obduracy a very useful shield.
	At the moment the Government are constantly riding roughshod over Parliament, even agreeing in Brussels to proposals before they have even been properly scrutinised by the appropriate parliamentary committee. It is high time we stemmed the constant draining of power from our own Parliament and reasserted our belief in democracy. I therefore support the spirit of the amendment moved by my noble friend. I am not sure this is the moment to air these wide issues, to which I have certainly not done justice in this short speech, but I heartily endorse the spirit of the amendment.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I too support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, as I did previously. I thank him for bringing the matter before the House and for doing so much research on it. I do not intend to speak for long.
	The noble Lord mentioned driving licences. It is well within my memory that the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, when she was Prime Minister, ridiculed the idea that there would one day be a European driving licence, or that we would have the European flag on our car number plates. But that has come to pass. I know we will be told that we need not worry about anything; this comes under, I think, the first pillar, so there would have to be primary legislation before we could have a European driving licence. Under the proposed European constitution, however, those pillars are dismantled and there is only one constitution, without the protection of individual agreements between individual nations. In that sense, as we have been told we are protected by the pillars, if the constitution comes into being, the fears of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, may well be realised.
	We will be told that there is no prospect of the constitution being brought forward, but the Prime Minister said last week that there was. The whole thing may be resuscitated; the pillars that protect us—according to the noble Baroness, when we last discussed these matters—will be abolished; the European Union, under the new constitution, may be able to introduce a European identity card, probably under qualified majority voting; and the British Parliament will be compelled to accept it.

Lord Hylton: My Lords, I am not commenting on the merits or otherwise of the amendment. Is it expected that foreign states will at some point in the future be able to consult our national identity register when dealing with British citizens travelling abroad or applying for their visas? There are many police and security services belonging to arbitrary and despotic regimes who we would wish to avoid having any access. But if there is to be some access, it is important that there should be safeguards and controls over this. I look forward to hearing what the Government will say on this matter.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, to be found speaking in the company of the noble Lords, Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord Stoddart of Swindon, puts my "euro reputation" at a certain risk. However, I remain an undimmed admirer of the indefatigability of both noble Lords, even though I disagree with them more often than I agree.
	As always, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, has done his homework. In moving the amendment, he seems to be saying that we have not yet signed up to a decision on ID cards in Europe that could be taken by a qualified majority and that he wants to prevent that happening without the consent of this Parliament. Given that we have spent 50 or 60 hours debating—often with some passion—our views on compulsory ID cards of our own making, that is not an unreasonable proposition. It would make a mockery of all our efforts if in three months' time—having opted into whatever it is—we find ourselves outvoted. Have I got that right? If I have, subsection (2) of the amendment is fair enough.
	I do not consider subsection (1) to be a runner on any basis. If we are not going to be part of the EU machinery that consented to the introduction of euro ID cards, we can scarcely complain if—having turned our back on that—there are certain consequences for our citizens. We cannot pass a clause in the Bill saying that, whatever Europe does with or without our consent or support, it will not be allowed to require us to have the ID card it has decided upon if we travel in its territory. I am trying to be helpful. I do not think that subsection (1) works but I am fascinated to know if there is substance in subsection (2).

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, my noble colleague Lord Pearson of Rannoch seeks further clarification from the Minister, as does the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. I admire the indefatigability of my noble friend—he is still a friend even though he does not take the Whip at the moment. He has an enviable knowledge of the intricacies of the interrelationship between the EU and UK legislative and constitutional issues.
	Like my noble friend Lord Waddington, I support the intent behind this amendment, but like the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, I note that subsection (1) of the proposed new clause is not operable. If we wished to travel across the EU, we would have to comply with its requirements. Shame, one might say, but that is the reality. I anticipate that, as my noble friend said, the amendment seeks clarification and will not be pressed today.
	Subsection (2) ask a very pertinent question, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give a proper and satisfactory reply to my noble friend's questions on it. I am aware that these days it is almost impossible to speak at Bill do now pass. It seems to me that the House has tried to stop that. As my noble friend moved the amendment with such tenacity it seems to me an ideal opportunity to reflect on the marvellous support that I have received from my Back-Benchers—17 of whom have during our six days in Committee, three days on Report and Second Reading and Third Reading, taken part in discussions on the Bill. I am extremely grateful to them as they have teased out more and more of the difficulties that the Government are heaping upon us through their drafting of the Bill.
	I also want to put on record my appreciation of the work of the Government's Bill team and of the courtesy that both Ministers, the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, and the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, have shown in the way they have handled the Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, is unavoidably absent today. I am sure that all our thoughts are with her. The Ministers have had to respond to a barrage of criticism on the Bill's core issues—issues on which the House has decided against the Government. I refer to three issues. First, the Government should not compel us to have ID cards by stealth during a period which the Government promised in their election manifesto would be a voluntary period. Secondly, the Government are still unable to give the House a clear indication of costs that may be audited for the running of the scheme. Thirdly, I refer to the issue of the commissioner's powers and the independence of that office.
	We believe it is right that another place should now have the opportunity to look again at all those issues. My fervent hope is that the Government will allow another place sufficient time next Monday to debate them properly because the people of our country deserve nothing less than that.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I hope that the House will grant me the indulgence of speaking very briefly a second time. It is against the rules but I had not realised that this was the last opportunity I would have to thank the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and the many other Peers who have made the passage of this difficult Bill so friendly and so constructive despite what the Government may think about being defeated seven times in the Lobbies.
	I, too, thank very particularly the Bill team for its tremendous help throughout. I thank my own colleagues, particularly my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford. It has been a useful if painful passage which I hope will in the end make for a better measure.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I shall deal with the amendment and then the thanks.
	As ever, we have listened with interest and not inconsiderable admiration to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch. I am reminded that the last time a politician was described as indefatigable, it was Mr George Galloway in another place describing Saddam Hussein, but perhaps I should go no further with that. I do not think that even the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, could be described as indefatigable in the same way as that.
	I listened carefully to what the noble Lord had to say about his amendments. As he described, subsection (1) of the amendment seeks to prevent any international body imposing conditions on any United Kingdom citizen to attend any place for the purpose of an issue of an ID card unless this has been agreed by a UK statute. Subsection (2) of the amendment seeks to prevent any Minister entering into an undertaking with the European Union to introduce an ID card scheme in the United Kingdom or agreeing any common standards in relation to such a scheme without the consent of Parliament.
	As we have said on previous occasions the Government's position is that there is no question of identity cards being introduced by fiat from Brussels. We very much doubt that the treaties could provide a legal basis for measures on national identity cards. Even if—which once again we doubt—it could be argued that Title IV could provide a treaty base, the UK would be bound by such a measure only if it opted in to it. Title IV is primarily concerned with border controls and the entry and residence of third-country nationals in the Community. It does not provide for the introduction of an EU ID card. In addition the UK is bound by measures drawn up under Title IV only if it opts in to them. There is therefore no question of the UK being forced to sign up to a European ID card under Title IV of the EC treaty.
	I am sure that the House will have no objection to my taking this opportunity to respond to comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, on Report, when he cited Council Decision 15226/04 of 15 December 2004—as he did this afternoon—which he believed showed that European ID cards could be introduced by Brussels without the consent of Parliament. I think he conceded that, subject to the advice that he has now received from senior counsel into what he described as "murky waters", this is no longer the case. I think he accepts that point now, which suggests that we have moved on a bit—certainly in the thinking of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. At least we have confirmed that point to his satisfaction.
	We should also make it clear—and it is important that the House should be in no doubt about it—that the decision in question provides that measures adopted under articles in Title IV of the EC treaty shall be subject to the co-decision procedure with the European Parliament, and qualified majority voting, rather than being adopted by unanimity and after consultation with the European Parliament. The United Kingdom, as the noble Lord has rightly said, opted in to that decision as to the appropriate procedure. However, I must also make it clear that that does not change the position that I have already set out: that under the Title IV opt-in protocol the UK is bound by a Title IV measure only if it opts in to it. We have not opted in to all future Title IV measures that are subject to qualified majority voting. For all measures, including those under Article 62(2), we have a right to decide and determine whether to opt in on a measure-by-measure basis.
	With regard to subsection (2) of the amendment, the Government have no intention of entering into an undertaking with other EU members to set up an ID card scheme. That is a decision for this Parliament and that is exactly what this Bill is about. I should also make it clear that there is no requirement for inter-governmental agreements that are not legally binding to be deposited for parliamentary scrutiny. The Government see no reason why special arrangements should be made only in relation to ID cards.
	As I have made clear, the decision on whether identity cards should be introduced in the United Kingdom is a matter for this Parliament and that is what we are debating today. The information contained on the card will be governed by regulations under what is now Clause 6(3). Those regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure and require the agreement of Parliament. The issue of common security standards for those states that issue ID cards is entirely different. The United Kingdom's interest in what other countries do is not whether they have an ID card scheme, but to ensure that if they do those cards which can be used to travel to and from the UK comply with suitably high security standards. I am sure all noble Lords will accept that that is in the interests of our country.
	The extraordinary JHA Council of 7 July last year asked for standards on physical security features to be agreed early in 2006 and for standards relating to the security of issuing processes to be agreed by the end of 2005. The JHA Council of 1 and 2 December adopted council conclusions which carried out this remit. The council conclusions are intergovernmental; they are not legally binding on any member state but they do show how seriously the member states take document security. In so far as the noble Lord's amendment is designed to prevent such intergovernmental initiatives, I strongly urge noble Lords to reject it.
	The noble Lord asked a series of questions. First, I confirm again that the Government have not opted into any EU measure requiring the introduction of identity cards. Secondly, I confirm that the Government have no intention of opting into any system of EU ID card, but as my noble friend Lady Scotland has said on several occasions and particularly on Report, it would be inappropriate to give some sort of commitment that would bind future governments; we cannot do so. Thirdly, I have not been briefed on common transport policy. Using that to bring in a common format driving licence would be one thing, but I cannot conceive that this could be used to impose a European Union ID card on member states. I do not see it as a back door method of entry for that purpose. The noble Lord is sometimes a bit of a keen conspiracy theorist, but that is one conspiracy that I cannot see coming to fruition.
	I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, that neither foreign states, nor anyone other than those employed to administer it, will have access to the register. As we discussed earlier, Clause 18 allows for information to be provided to overseas law enforcement bodies in the limited circumstances set out in that clause and subject to the conditions and regulations under Clause 21, which is parallel to Section 18 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act. Under the Act, the Secretary of State can prevent information being provided to foreign states if it would be inappropriate, perhaps because of concerns about fair trials in those jurisdictions.
	I have tried to cover all the matters raised by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, and other noble Lords during the course of this shortish debate on Third Reading. Before I sit down, given that the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, have made comments about the progress of the Bill, I shall add my own comments. I have happily spent many hours sitting next to my noble friend Lady Scotland listening to her with great intent and trying to provide her with some respite from the myriad of amendments and questions that have been raised about the Identity Cards Bill. Like everyone else in your Lordships' House, I sit there in awe and wonder at the way in which she does her very difficult job. It is sad that she is not with us today; for very sad reasons indeed. I know that I echo the sentiments of the House in wishing her well and thanking her for her incredible efforts in the course of this Bill and the other legislation that we have been considering in parallel.
	I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. She is at all times courteous. Her questions are well intentioned and well directed, and her amendments are well thought through and well argued. I enjoy the way in which she brings her wisdom and knowledge to this subject. Similarly, the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, who is a representative of a party that is implacably opposed to the legislation, has made an unusually large number of extremely constructive points and extremely constructive amendments, which have added to the weight and import of the Bill. I am also grateful to all other noble Lords, in particular the 22 Labour Back-Benchers who supported us at Second Reading and supported the principles behind the measure. I am also grateful to other Back-Benchers from all parties who have participated and to noble Lords from the Cross Benches. Finally, I thank the Bill team, who have made my job and that of my noble friend Lady Scotland much easier and who have occasionally provided us with a few one-liners to make matters lighter and slightly more humorous than they might otherwise have been.
	That brings me to the close of my remarks. I cannot support the noble Lord's amendment, although he moved it with his usual force and thought. Perhaps there will come a time when I will find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch; but I am not in agreement on this occasion.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: I fear that it falls to me to lower the tone of the party by winding up on this amendment. I thank all noble Lords who have supported the spirit of the amendment, if not its whole detail.
	I think that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, answered the first question in the affirmative: the Government have not yet signed up to the scheme in Brussels. I find it odd that he was not more specific in agreeing to answer the second question in the affirmative. However, he said that this Government have no intention of signing up to such a measure. He mentioned that he would not want to bind future governments by agreeing to the second question in full. I was not asking him to do that. I thought that a tradition existed whereby one government did not have the right to bind another government. That tradition is being severely eroded by other events in European policy. The Minister completely ducked my point on the common transport policy, but I forgive him for that. I think that we can take it that this is not a conspiracy policy; an ID card could be introduced via the common transport policy.
	I remain fearful that, one way or another, through developing common minimum standards such as the driving licence, entitlement card and so on, we will end up as part of a harmonised EU ID card system. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than if I were proved wrong.
	I understand that the Government have serried ranks of noble Lords waiting to vote down this amendment if I were to press it to a Division, so I feel that discretion should be the better part of valour, if only because I would not want it said that your Lordships' House had disagreed with it. Time will tell but, in the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
	Moved, that the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)
	On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons with amendments.

National Lottery Bill

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
	The national lottery has been a huge success. It was originally promoted by the previous administration and it has been developed and opened up to new and popular good causes by this Government. More than £18 billion has been raised for good causes during the past 11 years. About £16 billion of that money has already been put to good use. It has been distributed to exciting projects around the land by the Arts, Film and Sports Councils and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
	The Millennium Commission, Community Fund and New Opportunities Fund have invested in landmark projects such as the Eden Project and Tate Modern, in hospices and healthy living centres, and in thousands of small local and national charitable initiatives.
	The money for those good causes comes willingly from those of us who—let's be honest about it—play the lottery to win. Around 70 per cent of us play regularly. More than 1,700 lottery millionaires have been created. Many of those people have been generous in their own right. Eighty seven per cent of jackpot winners have given some of their money to charity; one in seven has given £1 million or more to another family member.
	Camelot is the company that we have to thank for much of this success to date. It has brought excellent business skills to running the lottery well and achieving high levels of sales. The National Lottery Commission has worked hard to ensure fairness to players and, with Camelot, to maximise the money raised for good causes.
	I mention all these organisations because they deserve credit for what they have done, but also because I want to make clear from the outset how big and how complex is this very British, very successful endeavour. It was a brilliant and experimental idea when Parliament approved the legislation in 1993, and it has flourished subsequently. The reason for that is teamwork between business, public service, voluntary organisations and, above all, the public.
	Many of the measures in this Bill are about keeping all those positive forces in balance to give the lottery another decade of successful life. This Bill aims to modernise and simplify the way that lottery grants are distributed and to increase public involvement. It will also create one distributor, the Big Lottery Fund, at arm's length from government, in place of three separate grant-making bodies. Getting grants paid to those who need them as quickly as possible and reducing balances of money that have built up is also an aim. The Bill will improve the way that the licence to run the National Lottery is awarded and the way that the operator is registered.
	Clauses 1 to 5 deal with the regulation of the lottery through the National Lottery Commission. Notably, the chairman of the commission would no longer change annually. Executive board members could be appointed, putting the commission in the same position as the companies with which it will be dealing.
	Clause 6 and Schedule 1 deal with amendments to the licensing structure of the lottery. Reserve powers will permit the issue of more than one operating licence and the system is designed to deliver significantly greater competition to the licensing process, if required, but there is a clear presumption that there will be a single licence.
	Clause 7 deals with the share of lottery money for the Big Lottery Fund. A new good cause with half of lottery funding will be set up for the Big Lottery Fund. This good cause will be very wide. For that reason the Secretary of State will have power to prescribe expenditure at the highest level.
	Clause 8 provides for a reserve power to reallocate excessive unspent balances from one distributor to another for the same good cause. It would be used only as a last resort after consultation and affirmative resolution by both Houses of Parliament.
	Clause 9 changes the system of allocating investment income to lottery distributors from the National Lottery Distribution Fund. In future it would be in the same proportions that ticket sales income goes to each distributor.
	Clause 10 will enable lottery distributors to seek and take account of public consultation in making distribution decisions. The intention is to remove any doubt about the power to allow the public to have a say in such important matters.
	Clause 11 will ensure that lottery distributors have powers to publicise the good things that the lottery has achieved.
	Clause 12 will allow the Big Lottery Fund to make grants in the Isle of Man and in the Channel Islands.
	Clauses 13 and 14 and Schedule 2 will set up the Big Lottery Fund and allow it to distribute lottery funds. The Big Lottery Fund will also be able to distribute non-lottery funds and give advice about the distribution of lottery money and applications for grants. The fund will be required to comply with directions from the Secretary of State and from the devolved administrations.
	Clauses 15 to 18 deal with the dissolution of the old distributors that the Big Lottery Fund will replace—the Community Fund, the New Opportunities Fund and the Millennium Commission.
	Clause 19 defines "charitable expenditure", in relationship to the Big Lottery Fund good causes, as expenditure that is charitable. This is a purpose-based, rather than an institution-based, approach
	The key principles behind the Bill are to open up the lottery to make it fairer and more accessible for its players and their communities. It is about ensuring the best value for beneficiaries. By moving the lottery away from government and to the people, it will create confidence in those who play. The Bill will ensure that lottery money goes efficiently to good causes and that the lottery responds to people's priorities. The Bill will enable increased public involvement with lottery distributors and allow them to seek and take account of public consultation in making distribution decisions. The Bill will deliver administrative savings of some £6 million to £12 million a year through the replacement of the three distributors with the Big Lottery Fund. The Bill will put the National Lottery Commission in a better position to run an effective licence committee, with a view to maximising money for good causes.
	I am confident that the overall effect of these measures will be to cut bureaucracy, to speed up the flow of lottery money to good causes and increase the public's say in that, and to underpin the competition to run the lottery games on which the good causes depend. The Bill makes modest but useful changes to keep the Lottery in excellent condition, and I commend it to the House.
	Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Davies of Oldham.)

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, I thank the Minister, not just for his lucid introduction of the Bill, but for the courtesy with which he sent an imaginative package of material to those of us in your Lordships' House whom he surmised might take an interest in the Bill. The revision of the 1993 Act that he sent was headed:
	"This is a version of how the National Lottery Act 1993 will read as amended by the National Lottery Bill"—
	he then went into heavy type, underlined—
	"after being considered in Standing Committee A in the House of Commons, November 2005 and Report/Third Reading on 19 January 2006".
	This showed remarkable confidence in the ability of the Commons government Whips to ensure the rejection of any amendments—a confidence that, given other events last week, turned out to be illusory.
	I declare a non-financial—perhaps an emotional—interest from my prior ministerial association with the National Lottery etc. Act 1993 and an equally non-financial interest, the Daily Mail notwithstanding, from my involvement in the Joint Committee on Pre-legislative Scrutiny on what is now the Gambling Act 2005. It is also a pleasure to be reunited with my noble friend Lord Astor, who was a fellow collaborator on the 1993 Bill in its passage through your Lordships' House.
	The gestation of the Bill over the past three years has shown some infirmity of purpose. If the Secretary of State was not of the same gender as Lady Macbeth, the latter's famous words to her husband might have been quoted towards her. Of course I realise that, where she has retreated, she might claim that that was because this Government are a listening government rather than that the original ideas were ill thought out. On balance, however, it looks as though it was six of one and half a dozen of the other.
	I realise how these mistakes occur. I was a member of an administration where a No. 10 edict wanted 35 per cent of board places on NDPBs to be held by women by a certain date without recognising that, unless we were going back to male summary execution, an insufficient number of vacancies would occur during the specified period for the accomplishment to be achieved.
	Similarly, the Secretary of State's determination to achieve cutting off half the balances in no time at all ignored the fact that the process by its very nature is prone to create new balances every year. Fortunately, the National Audit Office has longer experience of these numerate considerations and advised that running down balances takes real time. I am not even entirely easy about the Government's intentions on the destination of interest on balances. A Rolls-Royce engine takes longer to devise, test and build than the components that make it up, so inevitably it has different financial imperatives. Sending someone to see a war grave is an admirable initiative, which the Big Lottery Fund has recently consummated, but in all respects it is swifter than building a cathedral.
	For this very reason, I welcome the extension of the licence period. Any organisation that wins a licence twice will be judged by what it said in its application. Camelot has achieved a remarkable feat by reversing the decline in ticket sales, but product development takes time. I admire what it has done with EuroMillions, in relation to which so remarkable an event occurred over the weekend. The very thought of negotiating such a consortium of nine nations daunts me—and I have four years' experience behind me as British Minister on the EU budget council.
	I am also glad that the Government are at last making an honest woman—or, indeed, couple—of the Big Lottery Fund, although in the e-mail wedding announcement someone might have imaginatively recognised that "biglottery" is, at a rapid glance, close to both "bigotry" and "bigamy".
	On additionality, which will occupy us, nothing can ever wipe from my screen the memory that, when the New Opportunities Fund allocated cancer equipment to individual hospitals, I heard about my constituency allocations from the Secretary of State for Health before I heard from the New Opportunities Fund.
	I look forward to hearing the Minister explain in Committee the claim on the DCMS website during the Committee stage of this Bill in the Commons that:
	"Government is investing £2 billion of public and National Lottery money in sport by 2006".
	I shall be interested, too, to hear in Committee how he squares that with the statement made by Mr Caborn, the Minister in charge of the Bill in Committee in the Commons, who said:
	"We as a Government are strongly committed to ensuring that lottery grants are additional, so new clause 1 is not necessary".—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee A, 3/11/2005; col. 241.]
	The new clause had been tabled by the Liberal Democrat opposition. It may not come as a surprise to your Lordships' House that the subject of new Clause 1 required the Secretary of State to issue guidance on just such additionality.
	The Big Lottery Fund also has a mild identity crisis between living in sin and the conjugal bed. The official website, which ends up with an abbreviation for aspidistra—I do not know who owns it—tells us that the Big Lottery Fund had spent £13.5 million in grants on 322 projects by the 16th of last month. However, the literature that the Big Lottery Fund has bestowed on us in briefing for the debate does not indicate how this amount is separated from the much larger sums that the same Big Lottery Fund, presumably as an amalgam of the individual prior partners, also claims to have spent. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, once agreed with me that legislating for regional assemblies' referendums when regional assemblies already exist was Orwellian. In the context of the Big Lottery Fund, it is also confusing.
	Moreover, I challenge the Minister—this is a genuine challenge—to take a "Mastermind" examination on the Big Lottery Fund document England and UK programmes 2006–2009, which carries opaqueness to an art form, all against a quote from the Minister in charge of the Bill, Mr Caborn, on the DeHavilland report broadcast on the morrow of Commons Third Reading, which was:
	"I think the transparency that we've now put into distribution is one that should not just satisfy Parliament but also the general public as well".
	The Minister and I can conduct this "Mastermind" cross-examination in the margins of Committee.
	Although Mr Caborn is sure that we do not need to place in the Bill the Big Lottery Fund's commitment that 60 to 70 per cent of its funds will go to voluntary and community organisations, there are ambiguities in what the Government and the fund have collectively said in this area that we shall need to examine in Committee.
	There is also an enchanting coincidental irony that one piece of polling by the Big Lottery Fund says that nine out of 10 lottery players believe it is important that the general public are involved in deciding where lottery funding should go. Camelot's analogous research reveals that players are not motivated by the fact that there are good causes, but 91 per cent of the players play the game essentially to win. Of course, I can square that circle, but it does not suggest that opinion polling is a sensible way to defend your choice of individual destinations for the good-causes proceeds if you are a distributor. This is of more than a little importance now that ITV is entering the destination process—the Minister will know what I am talking about. It is not clear whether ITV voters are players, even if the percentage of proceeds on which they will be voting is, at the moment, de minimis. Even if it is de minimis, we shall also have to watch media intrusion, whether by ITV or the Daily Mail, if the public are to be convinced that their actions are meaningful.
	I was mildly shocked to hear the other day, quite a long time after many of us voted on 30 conservationist projects on the programme called "Restoration"—our telephone calls were supposed to be paying for the conservation of the winner—that the restoration of the winner has not yet properly started. But in this regard, the Bill is to be welcomed in enlarging the opportunities for the National Lottery Promotion Unit to educate us all.
	All in all, I agree with the Minister that the lottery is a good thing—although I realise perhaps I should not say it—and we should all rejoice at Camelot's international reputation and in the energy of its recovery in raising money for good causes. I look forward to Committee and I shall not have to force myself to simulate interest—an engaging phrase, which a typographical error in the final sentence of the Big Lottery Fund's presumably un-proofread briefing on this Second Reading creates by substituting "simulation" for "stimulation" in the text, an error that the Big Lottery Fund's critics might say unintentionally gives the game away.

Lord Shutt of Greetland: My Lords, I speak as one who is generally supportive of the Bill, although I have reservations about the whole concept of a lottery and the business of people who cannot afford tickets buying them. Having said that, I acknowledge that it is clearly popular and it works.
	Until now we have had five bodies covering the arts, heritage, sport, community and millennium funds, which were joined by the New Opportunities Fund. I want to speak about that amalgamation, which is the major part of the Bill, although there are other features. Clearly the major provision is to amalgamate the Community Fund, the New Opportunities Fund and the Millennium Commission. In reality, it creates a fund for other purposes, which is outside arts, heritage and sports. It covers everything else that could be charitable.
	I said that there were other features, and it is worth mentioning one at this stage. It is suggested that the Big Lottery Fund should be able to deal with non-lottery funds. I have some reservations about that. Some people will not accept lottery funds. By embracing funds that are not lottery funds, the Big Lottery Fund could put people off. They would prefer their project not to be supported by the lottery. I accept that the Big Lottery Fund will give us a great number of people who will be experts at grant-making, which, I suspect, is how the business of non-lottery funds has been brought in. I see that point but, if it is to stay in the Bill, perhaps there should be some form of packaging whereby it is clear to the grant applicant that there are resources from non-lottery funds.
	I should declare an interest, in the sense that I have had interests in giving away money as a trustee of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd. It is not a charity but the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust gives away money. I was involved 16 years ago in setting up the Calderdale Community Foundation, which exists to build up a sum of money to give away in precise geographical areas.
	Last week I was invited to lunch by the Big Lottery Fund. Your Lordships will be aware that we receive all sorts of invitations, and I tend to think that I have other things to worry about. However, people from the Big Lottery Fund rang me, so I thought perhaps I would go. I take the view that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but my speaking here today is an unintended consequence of that lunch. It may be that the people there had not bargained for what I might say.
	I have three concerns. First, the business of additionality has already been mentioned—how much of this Big Lottery Fund could be purloined by government for activities that ought to be supported from general taxation rather than the lottery? Secondly, I have the package of papers, including the document England and UK Programmes, which lists various headings, such as "Reaching Communities", "Voluntary and Community Sector Infrastructure", "Children's Play", "Environmental", "Well-being" and "International Grants Programme". I am very much in favour of the Big Lottery Fund doing something international. The list continues with "People's Millions" and half a dozen other headings.
	There is not a "miscellaneous" heading. I hope that in setting out programmes, which is not a bad idea, there are certain things that are worth concentrating on. We should never give up the opportunity of having something that does not fit the programme. There could be the brightest of ideas, but those running the fund could say, "I'm afraid it doesn't fit with any of our 12 programmes. Goodbye". Therefore, I hope that they can look at miscellaneous activities. Huge sums of money are involved and there must be some flexibility outside the listed programme.
	The third point for me is the most important. I am concerned about the spread of the expenditures and where decisions are made. It is interesting to look at what is proposed. There is to be a separate body within the Big Lottery Fund for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland. It will give money to the Channel Islands and, with a population of not quite 80,000, the Isle of Man will have its own fund in order to be a grant-making body. I am in favour of the Isle of Man; I was taken there as a child at the age of four and I been there several years since.
	However, I would like everybody to benefit from that sort of detail. Where are the great regions of England? The Community Fund, which is one of the funds amalgamated in the Big Lottery Fund, had regional committees. It had one for Yorkshire. I spoke to a former member of that committee earlier today. I said, "My instinct is that what has now been proposed is wrong". He said, "You're bang on right with your instinct". He said that it was a wonderful organisation, able to have that regional flavour and to say what are the important things in Yorkshire. I am sure that that is so for the north-west, East Anglia and so on. Is it right that the 80,000 population of the Isle of Man should have their own resources—good luck to them, and I do not oppose it—or that 1.5 million in Northern Ireland should? Yet, in Yorkshire, we cannot.
	The Bill concentrates power. I am interested in devolving power. Everybody is now taking about this thing called localism. Where is the localism in this? The more people with a local perspective that are involved, the better the decision; and the greater number of people that are involved, the greater the number who will be able to keep their eye on this additionality business. The Bill is calling out for amendment.
	In the hour or two that I have had—as I say, I was provoked into speaking today in one sense—I have looked at the board. It is interesting that of the 17 members—and I am sure that they are all good people; I do not doubt that—three are from Northern Ireland, three are from Wales, and three are from Scotland. Nine of the 17 represent 16.5 per cent of the population and the other 83.5 per cent has got eight. The reason that has been done is because the Government have decided that as Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are involved, they had better have people on the committee—not just one, but make it three. That is out of balance. With such a committee, it is no wonder that the 2.87 per cent of the population who reside in Northern Ireland should have 4.5 per cent of the spend, the 4.94 per cent who live in Wales should have 6.5 per cent, and the 8.61 per cent who live in Scotland should have 11.5 per cent.
	There may be reasons why these things are not exactly in balance population-wise, but it does not surprise you that you get that sort of balance when you look at the board. Therefore, it seems that this body is crying out for reform. The regions of England should have some input. In principle, it is right to put these two bodies together, which were perhaps fuzzy around the edges and very close together in many respects. It is right to do that on a national basis, but there must be a real regional input and a spread of power. We need some amendments to the Bill.

The Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for his helpful information pack which many of us received and which will undoubtedly be useful in the forthcoming progress of the Bill. I speak in this debate on behalf of historic places of worship. Although a bishop in the Church of England, I speak for a wider constituency base today in my role as chairman of the Church's main committee which represents 40 different Christian denominations and part of the Jewish community as well.
	I need to make two preliminary comments. First, in supporting the use of National Lottery funds for work on church buildings, I am in no way wishing to condone gambling. As the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, mentioned a moment ago, there was considerable heart-searching within churches when National Lottery funding began, and some congregations and denominations do not want to touch any funds generated from that source. Others—such as the General Synod of the Church of England and, more recently, the Methodist Church and the United Reform Church—have taken the view that if congregations wish to apply for funding to help support the buildings which they maintain and which benefit the wider community, they should do so.
	Secondly, however, the churches have generally been clear that is for them, not the National Lottery, to fund the running of their services, worship and ministry mission. The lottery has been equally clear that it is not its role to support worship.
	We all recognise that the historic church buildings of this country are a key part of our environment and heritage. They matter to people, be they worshippers or not. Surveys in both 2003 and 2005 have confirmed that 86 per cent of the population go into a church building each year. I will be the first to admit that not all, by any means, do so for religious services, but for a whole range of other reasons. These percentages are high whether among Christians, those of other faiths or those professing no faith at all. Some 72 per cent agreed with the statement that,
	"places of worship provide valuable social and community facilities".
	Some 69 per cent agreed with the statement that,
	"places of worship should be more accessible to the local community".
	The National Lottery has, along with English Heritage, helped considerably with repairs and new facilities for church buildings, as well as for schemes to help in interpretation and the encouragement of visitors. Over its first 10 years, it contributed in total some £300 million to church buildings and cathedrals. This money, and money to other historic buildings and sites, has helped to transform some communities, empower the people within them, and give them much more heart. Yet the needs have not gone away. Figures from Church of England parishes in 2003 indicate that they have outstanding repair costs of £373 million, on the basis of their last quinquennial inspection—by law, each Church of England church must be inspected every five years by a qualified architect or chartered surveyor. This figure does not include churches of other denominations, or places of worship of other faiths.
	This figure needs to be set against the £25 million per annum which has typically come from English Heritage and HLF together for the repair scheme for high-level works to keep buildings wind and watertight. The 2005 repair needs from two Church of England dioceses alone, Norwich and Chelmsford, would totally absorb the available English Heritage and HLF moneys. The simple fact is that our historic environment needs more money, not less. Major capital projects need time to come to fruition; to assemble all the funding, to clear specifications, to put planning permissions in place, and to deal with tendering. A building project does not gain an offer today and start on site tomorrow.
	This is why I and many colleagues in the churches and the heritage sector are concerned about certain provisions in this Bill. Clause 9 alters the arrangement whereby lottery distributors accumulate interest on their balances. At present, as I understand it, they gain interest on the balances they have set aside—like any prudent individual. Under the Bill, they will gain only a proportion of the interest. They will receive 16.5 per cent of the total lottery proceeds in the first place. They will equally receive 16.5 per cent of the total interest which builds up on all lottery distributors' balances, even if their balances are greater than those of other distributors.
	In one sense, that all sounds fair and equitable, but it has practical implications. It would reduce the amount of money available to the HLF. It means that, where it has prudently set aside money to meet its commitments when a major project gets underway, its interest is effectively capped. That means that there are fewer resources than it may otherwise have anticipated; and, in turn, that it has less money to deal with the pressing needs of our historic environment.
	I am quite clear that the HLF is not holding on to those balances to gain more interest. It simply wants to ensure that where money has been provided, it will be available to the applicant when ready to draw it down—to avoid the scenario whereby it may not be available because it has been spent on another project. Really, it needs a bigger slice of the cake.
	The other concern is with Clause 8, which will enable the Secretary of State to take away a distributor's balances and give them to another distributor. The Bill now makes clear that the funds would have to be used for the same good cause—that means that any funds taken from the Heritage Lottery Fund would still have to be spent on heritage projects. I also appreciate that the power would be used only after an affirmative resolution in both Houses and consultation with the other distributor.
	Even with all those safeguards, transferring balances to another distributor will involve discontinuity, uncertainty and administrative confusion for applicants, who may not know where to turn to resolve their application. At the very least, they are likely to experience delay while any transfer takes place. At worst, they may experience major disruption. What will not be safeguarded, I fear, is the very heritage that the lottery is intended to help.
	I suggest that if those draconian powers are to remain in the Bill, the Secretary of State at least considers ways to take into account the views of the major customers of a lottery distributor before such an order is made. I encourage the department to consider a provision for consulting those who will be most affected by such transfer—representative organisations in the heritage world and representative Church bodies. Views from such organisations would give the department a feel for whether such a transfer of resources would benefit or harm the good cause that it is seeking to promote.
	I hope that the Secretary of State will be prepared to consider those points sympathetically—both here and, in due course, in Committee.

Baroness Pitkeathley: My Lords, the National Lottery is one of the great success stories of our nation, as my noble friend reminded us. John Major's Government can take great credit for establishing it in the face of much scepticism and opposition. There was talk of producing a nation addicted to gambling and a great deal of fear in the charitable sector that the National Lottery would entirely divert from fundraising for all charities. Indeed, I must own my position on that: I headed a charity at the time and went on record with my worries about how we could survive the setting up of the National Lottery Charities Board—a position that I soon changed once I had received from the National Lottery Charities Board, which later became the Community Fund, a very large grant that transformed my organisation.
	Although the lottery was a success from the beginning, there was a sense that the projects and initiatives that it funded initially were not sufficiently well directed to the benefit of the people who played the lottery in the greatest numbers. The funding of the Royal Opera House and the purchase of the Churchill papers are most usually cited in that regard. That is what the incoming Labour Government tried to address soon after they came to power by setting up the New Opportunities Fund, whose twin aims were to complement existing and planned government initiatives and, most importantly, to focus exclusively on disadvantaged people and communities.
	Here, I must declare an interest as the first and, as it turned out, only chair of the New Opportunities Fund—a post that I held for six years. I think that I can be justly proud of that organisation's record. It set up 300 healthy living centres; it transformed libraries by establishing the People's Network; it transformed childcare services in schools and outside; it opened the countryside to many thousands more people; and countless other initiatives were delivered via both statutory and voluntary organisations. That is a fine legacy of six short years. The Community Fund, too, made a huge contribution to the charitable sector and brought many causes to national attention which otherwise would not now exist. It had a particularly fine record of enabling the voice of the user to be influential in policy development and service delivery.
	Good though both organisations were separately, I never had a problem with the decision to merge them to form the Big Lottery Fund. Although the Bill formalises that merger, we should be aware that the Big Lottery Fund has in essence been operating as one organisation since 2004, and operating most effectively. So the Bill, which finally formalises that merger and brings the Millennium Commission on board, is long overdue.
	The board of the Big Lottery Fund, under the very able chairmanship of Sir Clive Booth, and the staff are to be congratulated on the progress they have made during this period, which could have been one of great uncertainty, given the unfortunate delay in the legislation. However, the launch of the Young People's Fund, which puts young people at the very heart of creating, planning and running projects, the magnificent Veterans Reunited programme, to commemorate the ending of the Second World War, and the launch of the People's Millions, which will fund projects to benefit local communities and which the viewing public can take decisions about, are all very clear indications that the Big Lottery Fund has not stood still. They show that the fund and other lottery funders are adapting to change and focusing more of their work on addressing disadvantage. I am very glad that the New Opportunities Fund can be said to have shown the way on this.
	This long-awaited Bill has many advantages, to which I shall refer later and which the Minister has set out for us. However, we can never discuss lottery funding without three particular topics rearing their heads, and although I often think there is absolutely nothing more to say about government control, additionality and funding for the voluntary and community sector, it is inevitable that every speaker today will have their own views, and I am no exception.
	On the subject of government interference or control, it is very important to remember that all lottery distributors and not just the Big Lottery Fund are non-departmental public bodies, and are therefore accountable to the Secretary of State and to Parliament. I have chaired five of these bodies, and still hold the chair of two of them, so I am very familiar with how they operate. The relationship between a non-departmental public body and its sponsoring department is set by statute but subject to constant negotiation. The aim has to be for a relationship based on trust, confidence and the right amount of distance. It is for the non-departmental public body and the department to negotiate how much trust, confidence and distance they have, not once and for all, but constantly according to experience and to particular situations.
	My belief is that the Bill subjects the Big Lottery Fund to less control than it did the New Opportunities Fund. The Government set the strategic framework in consultation with the Big Lottery Fund and based on three broad themes. The fund will then decide specific priorities independently and will take entirely its own decisions about where the money goes. This is less prescriptive than was the case with the New Opportunities Fund, but I emphasise to your Lordships that although my discussions with Ministers about the priorities of the New Opportunities Fund were sometimes robust, there was never any interference in decisions about grants. I therefore have every confidence both in what is proposed in the legislation and in the ability of the Big Lottery Fund and other distributors to negotiate these important relationships. We must have confidence in them to do that.
	On the dreaded additionality word, it was always envisaged that lottery funding would be additional to funding that was properly provided by the state. Everyone I have ever spoken to or worked with in any lottery distributor upholds this principle and believes that funding should complement, not duplicate or replace, government funding. The difficulty lies in trying to find a once-and-for-all definition of additionality. What is seen as appropriate for government funding this year may not have been seen as appropriate five years ago or even two years ago, and may not be considered so again in five years' time.
	At present the Big Lottery Fund has an excellent definition:
	"Distinct from government funding and adding value".
	And all distributors are pledged to report regularly on the additionality issue. Many of the arguments about additionality are philosophical rather than practical, especially if we look at this from the point of view of the recipients of the money, whether individuals or communities. So far as they are concerned, the important thing is that the money is supplied, not where it comes from. Indeed, research has shown that recipients are unaware of the distinctions between lottery and government funding, and certainly of the distinctions between different lottery distributors. Actually, a disturbing proportion of the public thinks that Camelot provides the money.
	I know that my strong views about the impossibility of arriving at a definition of "additional" which would serve for a prolonged period will not stop others feeling just as strongly the other way, and certainly will not stop us having long discussions on amendments. Let me end what I have to say on this topic by quoting from the mission statement of the Big Lottery Fund, which is supported by seven values. One refers to additionality in these terms:
	"Additional to government, ensuring our funding is distinct from that of government and that it adds value".
	That is good enough for me.
	On the funding available to the voluntary and community sector, I understand the anxieties on this matter. I have confessed my own when the lottery was first established. Colleagues in the sector want a direction that 60 to 70 per cent of the money should go to the voluntary and community sector, and they want that included in the Bill, although of course the Big Lottery Fund has already given an undertaking that that sum will go to the voluntary and community sector and that there is nothing previously funded by the Community Fund which could not be funded by the new distributor. But at the same time the voluntary and community sector wants a less prescriptive approach. Personally, I fail to see how asking the Government to lay down in statute the exact amount to go to one particular sector fits with a less prescriptive approach. My own view is that the undertaking made by the Big Lottery Fund, together with its extensive and ongoing consultation with stakeholders and its commitment to report regularly to Parliament, will ensure that the voluntary and community sector receives more funding than ever before.
	Nor should we forget that this sector will also benefit from the other provisions of the Bill, allowing non-lottery funding which has charitable health, educational or environmental purposes to use their distribution infrastructure. That will open up new avenues for the voluntary and community sector from which it and its stakeholders will benefit hugely, I am sure.
	In conclusion, let me say that I am a fan of this legislation and, in passing, that I am delighted that it is to apply to the Channel Islands. As a Channel Islander myself, every time I have visited over the past 10 years, I have been roundly lobbied on this issue. The Bill will also help us to save on administration costs. It will simplify lottery application and distribution mechanisms. It will secure funding for the voluntary and community sector and, importantly, it will allow full-cost recovery by allowing all legitimate overheads to be funded. The voluntary and community sector has wanted that for as long as I can remember. It will increase the participation of the public in decision making and improve public understanding of the huge contribution the lottery has already made to our lives, and enable it to make that contribution more effectively and efficiently. I wish it a safe and speedy passage through your Lordships' House.

Baroness Flather: My Lords, having listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, sing the praises of this Bill, I hardly dare to say that I am rather worried about it. For me, it has set off some quite serious alarm bells. I am concerned that the Government will use the 14 per cent to be allocated to the Big Lottery Fund in a way that might blur the lines between what the Government should be doing and what the lottery should be doing. I am not the first person to point this out; nor will I be the last. But there are concerns about the Bill because greater powers have been taken by the Secretary of State on the direction of the Big Lottery Fund and the exercise of where the money is going to be directed.
	Not only that but the main priorities selected—education, health and environment—are those areas where it is very difficult to separate what the Government should be doing and what the Big Lottery Fund should be doing. With the term "additionality" goes independence. I have deep concern about the independence of the Big Lottery Fund.
	Before turning to my views on the Big Lottery Fund, I should like to say a few words about Camelot. I am very pleased that the Minister and my noble friend Lord Brooke have praised Camelot. I would like to add my voice. It has served us very well and has probably done even more than we might have expected. So it is good to know that the licence period will be extended. Clearly, a longer licence period will add to the stability of the system and perhaps provide for more development, as has already been said. As well as the Big Lottery Fund, there are sport, arts and heritage allocations, which stay more or less unchanged—50 per cent is divided between them, including a little for the film sector, which is fine.
	I should like to quote from the Big Lottery Fund booklet, which I was sent in preparation for this Bill. It states that the strategic framework is,
	"supporting community learning and creating opportunity . . . promoting community safety and cohesion . . . promoting well-being".
	Any of those could be absolutely in the remit of the Government. I do not see that any of those broad brushes are apart or separate or additional to what the Government should be doing.
	Those three areas are supported by four outcomes. The first is,
	"people having . . . chances in life, with better access to training and development to improve their life skills".
	Surely, that again is very much a Government remit. The second is,
	"stronger communities, with more active citizens working together to tackle their problems".
	I do not know how that works in practice. How do you make citizens active? I do not know. The third outcome is,
	"improved rural and urban environments, which communities are better able to access and enjoy".
	Yes, that is good. And the fourth is,
	"healthier and more active people and communities".
	This goes around and around in a feel-good way, but it does not tell us very much, which worries me hugely.
	I am also worried that the Secretary of State will have a lot of control on setting the priorities and policy direction. He will also make orders specifying recipients, amounts, periods and purposes of funding. If the Secretary of State can do all of those things, surely nothing is left out. Almost everything is covered. This Bill will give more powers to the Secretary of State to control the Big Lottery Fund, about which we should be deeply concerned.
	It is said that a commitment of 60 to 70 per cent of the funds will go to community and voluntary organisations. If that is the case, why is that not in the Bill? Why do the Government shy away from telling us how much will go to voluntary and community organisations? Clearly, they want to keep in hand control over what will go to statutory organisations. I am concerned about that.
	I should like to share my experience of accessing funds from the Millennium Commission for a project that I took through.
	I am referring to the memorial on Constitution Hill, which many noble Lords will have seen. We were initially asked to prepare a feasibility study and have a fundraiser before we had any means of getting all these things together, but we had to do so before we could even make an application. No seedcorn money was provided, and we had to spend a fair bit before the process could be started at all. Dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s to get a feasibility study done was not much use as time went on. Indeed, we were not able to get the 50 per cent we should have been able to, because at that stage it was difficult to know how much would be spent on the memorial. As your Lordships know, when you start on a project, you know it will cost more than you planned to begin with. Even one's own house or extension will cost more than you expected in the beginning.
	We did not receive the 50 per cent. We did not get back any of the money we spent trying to access the funds. Interestingly, though, another organisation was later given over £100,000 to prepare a feasibility study. That is one of the ways things have worked that has been extremely upsetting to organisations: some organisations seem able to access funds that have been denied to others. The most blatant example of all is the Dome. Hundreds of millions were given to the Dome by the Millennium Commission. The Government broke their own rules. No 50 per cent was required to be collected from any other source, and they have not paid back the money that was due to the Millennium Commission. It is frightening to think that the Government can break their own rules that they set for all little borrowers, take the money and use it from their own back pocket. This should be of concern to all of us.
	The Treasury already takes 12 per cent as tax from the lottery. Is the 14 per cent also going to be a floating "good causes tax"? We should not overlook the fact that the Secretary of State has control over this money. People of this country are the ones buying the tickets, so it is our money. If the Government control what they say is for good causes, it is a tax in another form.
	I am concerned about the lack of independence. With additionality should go independence. Why is there no watchdog for the lottery? There should be a watchdog, preparing a report annually and presenting it to Parliament. Then we will know exactly where the money has gone, and we can judge whether it has met the additionality condition. After all, we all live in this world. We know what is going on at this moment, and what the needs are. Let it be for Parliament to decide, on the basis of a watchdog's report, whether there is control by the Secretary of State or whether the money is actually additional and going to good causes as it should.

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff: My Lords, I decided to speak on this Bill because I have a concern about safeguarding opportunities for the young. First, I must commend the Government for listening during the consultation period and for ensuring that those who wanted to express their views were able to access people at different levels. There is much in this Bill to be welcomed. For the devolved administrations—and I have an interest in Wales—the changes are welcome.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, deserves praise for her work, and her expertise was evident today in her speech. However, recognising the problems she outlined, I have a concern that the principle of additionality must not be eroded. To ensure that it is not eroded, there needs to be some independence from the core needs of statutory providers in the way decisions are made and yet an awareness of the real needs—an awareness of what statutory providers are doing. This is a difficult balance to strike. For true added value it is crucial that the investment enhances what is already there and also that it is sustainable. We have all seen—sometimes sadly at first hand—the difficulties when pump priming is given to a project which does not have sustainability adequately built in and the project then folds through lack of sustainability later.
	I was always taught that the gifts of health and happiness are the greatest you can have. If we look at funding good health as a national priority—which I believe it must be—those projects and services which are known to bring huge enhancements to health and quality of life should also be eligible for funding when they are outside statutory funding. I refer of course to the hospice movement—I declare a major interest in this—and all that it does for the terminally ill. I hope the Minster will be able to assure me that they will still be included in the categories able to apply for lottery funds as they are in large part still charitably funded.
	I would also like to address sport and music as the innovators of change for good in society both now and in the future. We have a huge problem looming in our country. We have a whole tranche of youngsters who feel distanced from the rest of us and we need solutions to the problems, not just empty words.
	Of course, noble Lords will commiserate with me over the defeat of Wales on Saturday but let us not forget that in Wales rugby has grown out of the valleys, out of a working class culture, out of the very population from which much of the money raised by the lottery comes.
	It is every little boy's dream—or almost every little boy's dream in Wales—to play for Wales. Sport needs innovators outside and beyond the confines of an education authority. It needs opportunities to arise in the life of the genuinely talented child. This can happen when the child is able to experiment with sport in an environment removed from school where sometimes anti-social tactics from others have undermined confidence, where a child may genuinely fear being successful and in an environment where the child is not known by labels of academic performance in other spheres or by what his parents did or did not do. In the mixed-age, mixed-background environment of such sports and arts activities, young people discover inspiring role models, learn to venture far beyond their current social boundaries and develop confidence for integrating into society.
	I also want to address musical opportunities. Currently we have orchestras which open doors to those who otherwise would not be exposed to classical, jazz or other types of band music at all. This tuition teaches the child to interact, to have internal self-discipline, to listen and work with peers, to succeed and to experience the language of emotions and the subtleties therein. Indeed, one only has to listen to a teenager's choice of music and it tells you much about their mood. It is the process of making the music itself that differs fundamentally from the monotonous repetitive beat of pop, rap and heavy metal that becomes mind-numbing and incites all kinds of negative emotions in youngsters who listen to this for hours on end in their bedroom or on a street corner.
	The direction of funding for more creative arts has somehow to be independent and be outside and beyond what the youngster sees as completely statutory provision—as well as what is statutory provision. If it is too close to the Treasury I fear that it will become consumed in basic service provision and will never be spent on the added-value projects that provide the opportunities for youngsters to discover that they can after all do something well. Without consultation with the charity sector providers and other organisations, how will we guard against money being spent on what is actually core service? How will the public be involved in consultation?
	Let us not ignore the evidence that drug-taking is lower in those children who participate in team sport or music, that their physical health is better and their predictions for future health are far better than those who do not have such opportunities. Thinking that local education providers will provide unique focused opportunities is folly. The money will melt away in a bureaucratic maze of core provision and the diversity of opportunity and richness that it affords will be lost. So I would like the Minister to tell us—indeed, to assure us—that the Bill will guarantee an expansion, not a contraction, of all the good projects that have happened to date, and that the cross-boundary projects which have proven value for the physical health and emotional welfare of the youth of today will flourish, not dwindle.
	My fear is that if lottery money funds core health projects, we will remove the sources of prevention of illness—the sport and music activities which maintain physical and emotional fitness—and spend ever more on the ill effects that result from physical inactivity and emotionally disturbed people.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, has already touched on the over-inflation of the gambling addiction, which was spoken about before the lottery ever came into being. But the lottery appeals to those with debts and who have a tendency towards gambling. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me that the publicity will not encourage gambling by promoting it. We should not forget that it has been estimated that 28p in the pound from the lottery will go to good causes, but I believe that £1.28 per pound comes from tax efficient donation. The publicity must not mislead the public as regards making such tax efficient donations to charities that are already providing added value.

Viscount Eccles: My Lords, today we are following the trail of heritage and lottery Acts from 1980 through 1993, 1997 and 1998. As noble Lords have said, by 1997 the National Lottery was well into its stride. While it had been opposed, and its provisions were amended in 1997, it was accepted and today nearly everybody supports its existence.
	More widely, in 1997 many people were thankful that consensus politics seemed again to be an option. New Labour saw that the market had come to stay and that social justice could be combined with economic efficiency. That dramatic change in position opened up the possibilities of pluralism and of decentralisation—not just decentralisation of elected political institutions but on a much wider scale. We could hope to be freed up to pursue different solutions to social problems and not just be expected to follow centrally driven prescriptions.
	New Labour accepted the benefits of private sector competition. Why should matters stop there? For in the pursuit of democratic advance the role of the charitable sector, with centuries of experience behind it as an institution builder and as a focus for charitable giving and of voluntary endeavour, cannot be exaggerated. Surely with new Labour's strategy and with the benefit of 28p in the pound from the lottery, we expected unqualified support for non-governmental charitable bodies—bodies which can go their own way within the law, and not all go in the same way either.
	Many charities can and do massively support health. Many charities can and do support education and the environment. They research, innovate and experiment, and when they get it wrong there are always others ready to pick up the pieces. All that was needed was to wind up the Millennium Fund, go back to four distributors and rearrange the percentages of funds distributed by the four—a rearrangement consistent with strategy and supportable by almost everybody. What do we get instead? A retreat from the strategic promise into step after step of central government control—non-departmental public bodies are part of central government, whichever way we argue the case for independence—and towards single stream decision-making. And what about the Bill? It is effectively a whitewash of decisions taken in 2002 and 2003, which were implemented in June 2004. By making BIG the distributor of half the money, those decisions erode the position of the charitable sector. They ensure that with guidance and directions BIG will implement a centralist government social agenda despite the fact that the issues we face cannot solely be tackled centrally.
	The reason given that it was sometimes difficult to fund decentralised charitable programmes because of prevailing legislation is unconvincing. Indeed, Clause 19 can be likened to a fig leaf. The fact is that BIG and the Secretary of State, in either order, want to do it themselves. They do not believe in charitable intermediaries. This is the heart of the matter. Pluralist policies would entail an unacceptable loss of central control. To cap it all, BIG is now to tell the other three distributors how to operate, as is proposed in Clause 36(d).
	It is sad that we have come to this, deluged by BIG with new programmes described in the "now you see it, now you don't" language of abstract noun after abstract noun. I gloomily predict that BIG will make more and probably embarrassingly worse mistakes than ever the private charitable sector would. Finally, as a prelude to later stages I will set out the dilemma that faces anyone trying to tease out the purposes and effects of directions. There is theory behind directions, which can be briefly stated. Studies of directions, mindful that they are not subject to parliamentary scrutiny, say that they are for administrative matters. All are agreed that directions must not be unreasonable and that they may not go beyond the provisions of the Act concerned as it will be interpreted by the courts. I would be grateful if the Minister would confirm that that brief description is correct.
	However, when studying the proceedings in another place, that précis does not seem to be the end of the matter. There is clearly a concern that directions made will go beyond administrative matters into areas of policy and then could be in accordance with the Act only if the Act is so widely drawn as to defy proper description and debate in Parliament. I admit to being confused. Are directions a minor matter, with an element of last resort available to restrain unreasonable behaviour by bodies accountable to Parliament, or are they instruments for the development by Secretaries of State of policies beyond those that can be derived from the Act as enacted, or both?
	I contemplate the later stages of the Bill with scepticism and some sadness. We are being taken in the wrong direction, despite all the hopes of 1997.

Baroness Valentine: My Lords, as a former National Lottery Commissioner I am delighted to be speaking at the Second Reading of the National Lottery Bill. I should also mention that I am chief executive of London First and that Camelot is one of our 300 business members.
	The lottery has been a great success. It has raised over £17 billion for good causes nationwide since the first draw in November 1994, and has helped many worthwhile projects to move forward when under other conditions they would have struggled to find funding. I welcome the Bill as it addresses issues that have made the working environment difficult for the National Lottery Commission and the current operator, Camelot.
	One such issue is being tackled by proposing that the commission is given the ability to appoint a permanent chair, as well as giving them the ability to increase the number of commissioners. The practice of rotating the chair annually while I was a commissioner in fact meant that the chair spent several months being brought up to speed and introduced to stakeholders, only to begin the process again as soon as the chair had established themselves.
	The flexibility to appoint further commissioners will allow the commission to bring in a broader range of experience and provide continuity. It is essential as we approach the renewal of the operating licence that the Bill enables an effective competition to take place. Giving the commission the discretion to increase the period of the operating licence allows it to determine the appropriate period in the light of market factors. A judgment will clearly need to be made on the optimal time frame to maximise returns to good causes as well as achieve investment in technology, products, games and services to that end.
	The Bill also tackles the issue of publicity. The range of projects supported by the lottery is impressive including, to mention just two, the Angel of the North, a source of local pride as well as a contribution to UK tourism, and the Tate Modern at Bankside, forming part of the successful regeneration of London's South Bank. I welcome the opportunity to publicise those projects through the National Lottery promotions unit.
	Finally, with the draft tender for the competition due in April and the final invitation to apply due out in June, I urge haste in clarifying the licensing provisions contained in the Bill.

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction today and in particular, echoing the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, for his provision of those useful materials in relation to the interpretation of the Bill. Perhaps the fruits are borne out in this debate and we understand the nature of the Bill only too well as a result of those materials.
	This debate has reflected many of the uncertainties and concerns surrounding the Bill, but the common ground adopted by all those in the debate is that the National Lottery has been a great success story. The Minister's introduction both in terms of the money raised and the projects supported illustrates that. It has transformed much of Britain in a multitude of ways. I, too, was pleased that Camelot was mentioned during the debate, because I agree that it deserves great credit for the way in which it has run the lottery. It is good to see that returns have begun to grow again after being static or falling for some time.
	Even so, the National Lottery is perpetually in the spotlight. From the outset there was controversy about the objects and the balance of funding by the lottery distributors. There has recently been criticism of the way in which various of the lottery distributors have held balances. We have had concerns about diversion of money from other causes to fund the Olympics; and this past weekend we have had a great deal of publicity surrounding the EuroMillions jackpot, with prize money amounting to over £100 million.
	In those circumstances, it is hardly surprising that there has been a great deal of debate about the Bill. Of course there are some elements that we support, particularly the additional flexibility for the length of the national operator's licence in Clause 4. The centrepiece of the Bill is the merger of the New Opportunities Fund with the Community Fund to create the Big Lottery Fund. However, as we have heard today, the essentials of the Big Lottery Fund have been in place for over a year, and much as I respect those who now run it, it does very much look like a Government fait accompli. The Big Lottery Fund was launched on 1 June 2004, more than 18 months before the legislation required to set it up can be passed. In fact, the merger was announced by the Secretary of State Tessa Jowell as long ago as 25 February 2003. When details of the merger decision first emerged, the NCVO said that there would be three tests of any such new lottery distributor: a guaranteed percentage of funding for voluntary organisations; independence from government; and grant making to be additional to existing public spending.
	On these Benches, we agree with those tests, and those are the yardsticks by which we shall measure the Bill. In the DCMS consultation on the creation of the Big Lottery Fund, there was clearly general support for retaining the principle of additionality; that is that lottery money should not pay for things that the government would otherwise have funded. However, the most disturbing aspect of the Bill is its failure to safeguard additionality, despite the New Opportunities Fund having a history of not pursuing it. Lottery funding should not be a substitute for general taxation, and governments should not be in a privileged position to use lottery funding for essential services or government-inspired programmes.
	Additionality was a founding principle of the National Lottery. The idea was that the public would play the lottery in the knowledge that their money was going to support good causes in sport, the arts, heritage and charities. The Prime Minister said in 1997:
	"We don't believe it would be right to use Lottery money to pay for things which are the Government's responsibilities".
	However, since that statement, the Government have persistently flouted the principle. The first breach of this founding principle came with the National Lottery Act 1998, which established the New Opportunities Fund to distribute 33.33 per cent of lottery funds among "innovative projects in health, education and the environment". The New Opportunities Fund was established to distribute moneys for these causes, but it then supported a range of government-directed programmes. Examples of breaches of the additionality principle by the New Opportunities Fund include: funding MRI scanners in NHS hospitals; funding a free piece of fruit a day for schoolchildren; funding healthier school meals; and some of those National Health Service projects that were mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay.
	These are all important projects, but they are all in pursuance of mainstream policy objectives and the Government should have addressed them by means of tax revenue. Both the National Audit Office and the DCMS Select Committee have argued that the Government have not properly recognised in their publicity the difference between government and lottery spending. That point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke.
	As Sir John Major—who after all was essentially the creator of the National Lottery when he was Prime Minister—said in his foreword to Ruth Lea's recent booklet, The Larceny of the Lottery Fund, which deals at length with the additionality issue, the intention was for lottery money to be,
	"used for additional spending on causes or activities that the taxpayer should not be expected to cover".
	Yet the Government, he said,
	"has diverted Lottery funding into areas that have historically been funded by the Exchequer".
	So, with the Community Fund and the New Opportunities Fund merged, Clause 7 provides for the distribution of 50 per cent of lottery funds. It states:
	"50 per cent shall be allocated for prescribed expenditure that is (i) charitable, or (ii) connected with health, or (iii) connected with education, or (iv) connected with the environment".
	According to published draft regulations which define "prescribed expenditure"—following regulations under the 1993 Act which were approved last year—this will include promoting community learning; promoting community safety and cohesion; and promoting physical and community well-being. I must agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, that many of these areas are surely the proper responsibility of the Government.
	The Big Lottery Fund has a specific remit to fund these projects when taxpayers would rightly expect many of them to be funded directly by government. In effect, we are seeing taxation by the back door. This cannot be what was intended when the lottery was set up. The Big Lottery Fund and other lottery distributors have committed themselves to report on how they will uphold the additionality principle. We on these Benches welcome that commitment, but not to include that commitment in the Bill is a glaring failure.
	The National Council for Voluntary Organisations and the National Campaign for the Arts have called for a new clause requiring all lottery distributors to report on how they have upheld the distinction between lottery expenditure and core government expenditure. My honourable friends in the other place proposed an amendment to this effect which we will be pursuing in Committee and on Report.
	A further important amendment that we would wish to see would involve charging the Secretary of State with producing additionality guidance for all lottery distributors, making provisions relating in particular to how to distinguish between core government expenditure and lottery funding, and how to ensure that lottery funding is allocated free from political priorities. We also wish to see the Bill amended so that a periodic report is made to Parliament on how that additionality guidance has been adhered to. In other words we on these Benches want to see additionality enshrined in legislation in a practical way. Not only would that increase public confidence in the lottery but it would help ensure against further political interference, the subject of my next point.
	In addition, the Bill widens considerably government involvement in the distribution of lottery moneys on a number of fronts and undermines the independence of the Big Lottery Fund. Currently the Secretary of State, under the 1998 amendments to the 1993 Act, has the power to specify the initiatives to which the New Opportunities Fund will give effect—the programmes which it is required to run. The Secretary of State is required to seek the Treasury's approval before specifying these initiatives. The current legislation places the onus on the Secretary of State to consult on the initiatives which the New Opportunities Fund is tasked with running, prior to issuing directions to the NOF, rather than allowing the NOF to consult on the initiatives it will run. The NOF has the scope to consult on the way in which initiatives will be administered, not on what those initiatives will be.
	By contrast, the Community Fund has the freedom to set its own strategic direction, priorities and programmes, following consultation with stakeholders, including the Secretary of State. The Community Fund is required only to take account of the policy directions given to it while the NOF is required to comply; and, of course, the Community Fund, as my noble friend Lord Shutt illustrated extremely well, has regional committees which have helped it decide on the projects to be funded.
	Clause 14 amends the 1993 Act so that the Big Lottery Fund will be required to comply with directions issued by the Secretary of State. We have heard that the Big Lottery Fund is effectively a non-departmental public body. Clause 14 further specifies that the direction may provide to whom, for what purpose, and under what terms and conditions moneys may be granted by the Big Lottery Fund. I was interested to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, said about the status of the Big Lottery Fund compared to the New Opportunities Fund in terms of being less under the control of government. That is not my interpretation of the Bill and the interpretation made by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, was much closer to reality.
	What assurances do we have about how those ministerial directions will be made? All this is going in the wrong direction. Instead of widening their interference, the Government should be seeking to minimise it. The Big Lottery Fund should be guaranteed greater independence from government in its decision making.
	Clauses 8 and 9 need discussion in terms of their impact on balances, and I very much hope that we will explore those in greater detail in Committee.
	Finally, we also have concerns about changes to the definition of "charitable expenditure" in Clause 19, which amends Section 44 of the 1993 Act, from expenditure by charitable, benevolent or philanthropic organisations, to,
	"expenditure for a charitable, benevolent or philanthropic purpose".
	Of course we understand that there are many worthy social enterprises and community projects that do not technically qualify as charities, which would benefit under the new wording. But this would also allow activities undertaken by bodies from any governmental sector, such as local authorities or primary care trusts, to be classified as charitable expenditure.
	That is undesirable in two respects. First, the change can be seen also as potentially further eroding the additionality principle. The definition is so flexible as to allow for further moneys to be siphoned off for programmes in the areas of health and education, which are the proper domain of Exchequer funding. Secondly, the change represents a danger to voluntary sector funding. The Government may have given assurances that there will be no shortfall in support for the voluntary and community sector and the Big Lottery Fund board has indeed given a commitment that some 60 to 70 per cent of its funding will go to that sector, but that policy is vulnerable to reversal. We want to see those commitments to the voluntary and community sector safeguarded for the long term. What are the Government's intentions and how do they plan to do that?
	I said earlier that the three tests of any new lottery distributor should be independence from Government, that grant making should remain additional to existing public spending, and that there should be a guaranteed percentage of funding for voluntary organisations. Unfortunately, it is clear that the Bill fails to satisfy all three tests and, accordingly, we on these Benches are unable to give our support without substantial amendment.
	I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

Viscount Astor: My Lords, in 1993 I introduced the Bill to establish the National Lottery on behalf of my noble friend Lord Brooke, who was then Secretary of State for National Heritage. The Bill was greeted with great scepticism by the two then Labour spokesmen, the noble Lords, Lord Donoughue and Lord McIntosh of Haringey, and I have to say that it was greeted with outright hostility on the Lib Dem Benches.
	Anyway, time has passed and there has been a reversal of roles—I must warn the Minister that I will try to give him just as difficult a time as I was given then by the Opposition. We fought the battle with the Lib Dems on why there should be a jackpot and with the Labour Party on why the lottery should not be run as a charity as opposed to having competitive bids for its operation. Incidentally, Labour changed its policy on increasing the number of operators when it came into government.
	I suppose that, at this stage, I should declare an interest. I am trustee of the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham, which has just received approval in principle for a grant from the HLF.
	Since the National Lottery was established, we have had two Acts that have affected it. The first, in 1998, created the New Opportunities Fund, with the sixth good cause taking 13.3 per cent from the other good causes. The New Opportunities Fund was for innovative projects in health, education and the environment. In creating the fund, the Act increased bureaucracy, which is one of the reasons for the current Bill to reduce bureaucracy, even though that bureaucracy is of the Government's own creation.
	The second Act, which was in the previous Parliament, was the Horserace Betting and Olympic Lottery Act 2004. That created the Olympic Lottery Distribution Fund. We supported that Bill despite the fact that it will siphon off over £1.5 billion from the existing bodies. It is a pity that the Government did not listen with more care during the passage of that Bill to what we had to say about the Tote, which remains in limbo, caught between the incompetence of the department and the diktats of Brussels. That is a subject for another day, however.
	The creation of the National Lottery was, as we have heard, the brainchild of Sir John Major, our former Prime Minister. He saw the lottery as a chance to enhance the lives of millions of people by funding arts, sport, charities and our national heritage, and to celebrate the millennium, with each body receiving 20 per cent. It was to be funding free from the grasping hands of the Treasury, additional to government spending and free from the control of Ministers. Those three key principles have been eroded by this Government—the first two by a Chancellor with a vast deficit to fund and the third by a Government who cannot help interfering and exerting control by guidance and regulations and, if that fails, by using their power of appointment.
	The creation of the New Opportunities Fund enabled a blatant and overt breach of the principle of additionality, despite the fact that, when the original Bill was going through Parliament, the Labour Opposition stressed the importance of government keeping an arm's-length relationship with grant distribution.
	Despite all that, the National Lottery has been a great success, with sales of tickets last year of nearly £5 billion. I have to say that there has been little growth in sales over the past 10 years, although the recent EuroMillions rollover may have added to the lottery's fortunes. As we have heard, the lottery has been well run by Camelot—I was delighted that the Minister was able to give it credit—and has generated about £18 billion for good causes and over £24 billion in prizes. Most of the time, the distributing bodies have done well. They have improved the quality of life for thousands of people around this country and their successes have vastly outnumbered their failures. The Arts Council alone has given over £2 billion to the arts, and sports have received slightly more.
	However, the change of the National Lottery Charities Board into the Community Fund in 2001 was not a success and was rightly censured and criticised by the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee. It proved, again, that given the wrong remit, even supposedly sensible people can make ridiculous decisions. Reputations were destroyed by funding the farming of Peruvian guinea pigs.
	We must not forget that there was a much more serious failure, the Millennium Dome. That was a good idea, totally mucked up by this Government. We are still bailing it out and financing it and that will go on for some time. It is an embarrassing reminder for the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. However, we must also not forget that the lottery has been good for the Treasury, which has collected over £6 billion in tax since 1995.
	I return to the Bill. Why do we need it? The Government want more control. The original 1993 Act allowed the Secretary of State to issue directions to distributing bodies to ensure good governance, financial control and appropriate allocation of funds. The 1998 Act went much further and introduced the need for all distributing bodies to construct strategic plans in line with government policies. The Government also imposed highly prescriptive policy directions, so that the Big Lottery Fund must comply with directions issued by the Secretary of State as opposed to the other distributing bodies that will have to take into account policy directions only when allocating funds. Directions will also apply to the internal functions of the board, including the employment of staff. Let us not forget that it is the Secretary of State who appoints the chairman and the board members, so delivery has been politicised over 50 per cent of the funds that are distributed.
	The Bill in Clauses 7, 8 and 14 gives a new power to the Secretary of State to reallocate funds from one distributor to another, although not between good causes. It is difficult to understand how that can be done and how the other distributors will have the expertise to do it. No doubt that is something that we shall have to discuss in Committee. Clause 9 imposes a new way of calculating interest on lottery balances.
	The Bill creates the Big Lottery Fund by amalgamating the Community Fund and the New Opportunity Fund, although we have heard that they have in fact been amalgamated for some time. As a result, that will account for 50 per cent, as I have said. Sports, the arts and heritage will remain with 16.6 per cent, rather than the original 20 per cent that they were always going to receive and did receive at the beginning of the lottery. It will also cost £5 million to amalgamate the two, which is equal to at least one year's supposed savings. A memorandum submitted to the House of Commons Select Committee by the New Opportunities Fund showed that it was,
	"established to make grants to health, education and environment projects, UK wide, under initiatives to be specified by Government".
	It is quite clear that there is to be greater ministerial control over a larger sum of money. That leaves the Government open to the accusation that they have been able to push money to areas in England where it suits them. Although I am not sure that that is entirely fair, it is an accusation that they will have to answer when they have the control.
	Ministers will not admit that they have broken the principle of additionality and they claim to be committed to it. However, it is clear to everyone else that they have. As we know now, this Government can interpret principle by as many means as they want—almost as many as the number of lottery tickets bought on a Saturday afternoon, one suspects. During the passage of the Bill in another place, the Minister gave a commitment that the Big Lottery Fund would produce a report on how it upheld the additionality principle. That is not good enough. It is not answerable to Parliament; only Ministers are answerable to Parliament. The principle must be on the face of the Bill. Ministers must take responsibility, so that through their departments the distributing bodies can be fully answerable to Parliament.
	We will seek to insert the principle of additionality into the Bill during its passage through this House. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will no longer be able to rely on the lottery to plug spending holes. We shall support the amendment suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, about guidance to bodies on additionality. This is an important subject and it is an area where my noble friends Lady Flather and Lord Eccles are concerned. I agree with all that they have said about it.
	When the Bill proceeded through another place, the Government were attacked on it a number of times. Their response was quite weak. Their argument was that if additionality were defined in statute, it would leave every funding decision open to legal challenge. The answer to that must be that they will not be any more than they are now. There have been no challenges, as far as I am aware, from those who have been turned down in the past 12 years. The Government's argument, therefore, does not stand up.
	The other reason put forward by Richard Caborn at Third Reading in another place was that,
	"there is a great deal of Government expenditure . . . that falls outside such expenditure".—[Official Report, Commons, 19/01/06; col. 1010.]
	That is a rather convoluted and obtuse statement. He then promised to explain what he meant by the end of the debate, but he managed to come up with only one example, which was that the Government provide money to charities. He failed to explain who provides it, where it comes from, where it goes, how it is accounted for, and who accounts for it. It made no sense and he did not answer the questions. He satisfied neither us nor the Liberal Democrats.
	We all know that there is a long list of projects that break the principle of additionality, but I shall not attempt to list them. It is not just me. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee in another place, which is dominated by Labour Members, condemned the erosion of the additionality principle in its 2004 report. It called for an annual statement to Parliament on how the principle was applied. All that, despite the Prime Minister saying in 1997 that the Government did not believe it right to use lottery money to pay for things that were the Government's responsibility.
	Ministers in another place tried to excuse their behaviour—that is the polite way of describing it—by offering to implement what was in the Labour manifesto. There would be public consultation by the end of the year on how the lottery's good-causes proceeds were spent after the new lottery licence was awarded in 2009. I thought that that was a trifle convenient. I wonder what else might happen on the political front in 2009 or 2010 to enable the Government to make what could be called extravagant promises. I can think of something, but I shall leave the Minister to ponder that question.
	We shall be putting forward amendments on the issues that I have raised, but I have a simple alternative solution to the problems created by the Government. I shall be moving amendments in Committee to put back the four original distributing bodies, covering the arts, sports, charities and heritage. We need to have that debate. I was delighted that my noble friend Lord Eccles supports that principle. We have heard other concerns today, which we shall deal with in detail in Committee. One of them is the definition of charitable expenditure, which is an important issue.
	I come back to what I said earlier. I am a great supporter of the lottery. I bought a ticket in the first draw, and have bought many since. I have never won a prize but remain doggedly hopeful. I am reminded of the day of the first draw when we were all encouraged to buy a lottery ticket. The Permanent Secretary got in a panic in case one of his Ministers might win a prize. He sent round a note saying that should a Minister win a prize we were all expected to give the money to charity. I sent back a note saying that if I won £10 I would certainly give the money to charity, but if I won the jackpot, I would consider my position in the government very carefully. That remains my position today.
	I thank the Minister for being so helpful in his letters that he sent prior to the debate. We shall have an interesting time in Committee.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I think the whole House will have recognised that if the last sentence of the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, is true, we shall have a lively time in Committee—particularly on one or two key concepts. I take delight when blood-curdling threats emerge from the opposition Benches about what they will do in Committee. On this occasion it will not be, as so often happens, a destructive analysis of a government Bill, but they will put their minds to constructive amendments—defining in legislation the concept of additionality, in particular, which I shall discuss in a moment. The Opposition have a hard task ahead of them, and they will have to convince the whole House that they know in legislative terms what they are doing with that concept. We look forward to that constructive aspect on the Bill.
	The Government believe that the Bill considers all the issues which are appropriate to the National Lottery against a background of development over more than a decade. I pay tribute early on to the fact that the lottery was born from the work of the previous administration, but I think that it will be recognised that we have moved on considerably. Changes are necessary and the Bill is about the necessary changes.
	I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, was being uncharacteristically ungenerous when he indicated that I had provided all noble Lords with a Bill which was in its pristine state as it emerged from the Commons, without taking account of possible amendments in the Lords. In factual terms, all I could do at that stage was to indicate what the Bill would look like, and does look like until we get further debate.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, I was not in any way suggesting what was going to happen in this House; all I was saying was that the way the matter read was, "The Bill will be as follows after Third Reading", when it had clearly been written before Third Reading.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, this was my desperate attempt to be helpful to the House—by indicating what the finished product would be like if in fact no changes had been effected by this House, in circumstances where I am not in a position to anticipate any such changes. Of course, I anticipate that there will not be any changes, but we shall see. We shall see just how constructive the Opposition are and the skill and conviction with which they present their amendments.
	The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, raised first the issue of additionality as going to the heart of one of the issues in the Bill. That was the substantial element in the speeches of both noble Lords on the Front Benches of the Official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats. The issue was referred to in many other contributions in the debate, notably by the noble Baroness, Lady Flather.
	I emphasise to the House that we remain committed to the principle that lottery money should add to and not be a substitute for government money. There is a very big difference between agreeing priorities and outcomes that align with government priorities and using lottery funding to substitute for government expenditure. We are not doing the latter.
	Lottery money is not just for spending in areas where no government spending would ever take place. That would be an impossible situation. We expect the lottery to spend on top of things which government would normally fund. We could not possibly argue that, because the Government spend money on the arts, heritage and sport—as we obviously do—the lottery should have no contribution to these areas due to some concept that it infringes a principle of additionality.
	The same is certainly true of health, education and environment. Of course these are key spending areas for government. Are noble Lords really contending that in fact these areas should not be contributed to from lottery funds? Or is it suggested that in legislation it is straightforward to define the principle of additionality? We certainly adhere to that principle. Our contention is that it is extremely difficult to express this concept in legislative terms, but we will see what emerges from the Opposition, who this evening at least were extremely buoyant about their ability to present an effective definition for these issues.
	The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, also criticised the Government's announcing of lottery awards, and I think there was a government slip at that time. We have changed the reference to schools sport on the department's website because we accept that the original text was not clear between the lottery contribution and government. The National Audit Office was critical of the Government on this, and we accept the point in that limited area. We have taken steps to amend that.
	That does not mean that we do not, in general terms, adhere strictly to the concept of additionality. It makes no sense to argue that the taxpayer should pay for everything to do with our health, learning and environment, or that nothing can be contributed from the lottery. When it comes to additionality, there has been a tendency in this debate to understress the extent to which the Government are committed to and observe the principle. There is also a belief that in legislative terms this is an easy concept to define. We shall see.
	The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, also suggested a worry about the failure to spend rapidly the £3 million prize money which the Manchester Victoria baths project won as a result of the first series of the BBC2 Restoration programme. I accept his concern, which he articulated in precise terms. It is just a genuine problem that the Restoration project focused only on the restoration of the Turkish baths, which excited the public's imagination so that it won the first position. Unfortunately, the Turkish baths are only part of an important heritage site, and we could not start work on that project ahead of a solution for the site as a whole. There is no intention in any form of reneging on the commitment made, or the interesting idea of the prize and the development there. There is a genuine, practical difficulty.
	The noble Lord, Lord Shutt, raised a question about the Big Lottery Fund and the flexibility about what fitted into the framework. We expect the framework created to be broad enough to allow many different types of project to be funded. We do not pretend that everything is going to fit within the framework, and that is why the fund will also be delivering some demand-led, lightly prescribed programmes, including Awards for All and the new Reaching Communities programme, which have the areas of flexibility and response to community pressure which he was strongly advocating in his speech.
	The noble Lord also mentioned the issue of representation. We are in an interim stage. The current arrangement is a temporary measure, and we intend to provide for the final Big Lottery Fund board to have 12 members: one member each to represent England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the other members general UK members. I think that addresses what he regarded as somewhat over-representation of the communities of the United Kingdom and the under-representation of the regions of England.
	The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham thought that Clauses 8 and 9 might mean less money for heritage. There is no power within these clauses to move money from one good cause to another. Money could be transferred from the current heritage lottery, but I assure the right reverend Prelate that such moneys transferred could still be spent only on heritage. I give him the assurance that there is not a loss to the heritage funding in those terms. I recognise his obvious special interest, in terms of his representation of the Church in relation to the substantial amount of heritage for which it is responsible.
	I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley, who has left her place to preside over our proceedings. She anticipated—she was partly responding to what had already been indicated—the issue of how one defines additionality in legislation. She is so right on that point. She will recognise that our recent statements about the Bill mean that the voluntary sector will not lose out under the arrangements. We welcome her acknowledgement that government intervention with the Big Lottery Fund is appropriate, and intend to operate a light touch. She speaks with many years of direct experience about the lottery funds, so her representations were all the more valuable for that.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, emphasised their concerns about the degree of government control represented by the measure. I emphasise that we are committed to a light touch on the Big Lottery Fund. I heard the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, suggest that the directions represent increased power of interference from the Secretary of State. We have already shown our intent by issuing new interim policy directions for the New Opportunities Fund and the Community Fund. We certainly recognise that it would be a mistake for the concept to develop that the Government were operating with a heavy hand on the fund. That is not so. We will allow the fund full scope to make decisions on programmes, choose delivery mechanisms, identify partners and select projects.
	I hope that during Committee I shall be able to reassure the House even further on those issues. There is no doubt that that is an important area of public concern and controversy. One advantage of Committee is that we will have the chance further to explore both that and additionality, which are the two issues that have been identified in the debate.
	I want to reassure the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, that Clause 14 does not allow the Big Lottery Fund to tell other distributors what to do. It merely provides the power to allow it to provide wider advice, such as a lottery funding website to help people to apply for lottery funds. It is question not of increased direction, but of extending the opportunity for advice.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, asked whether hospices would still be eligible for funding and whether there would still be funding for cross-cutting health projects. I assure her on both counts. All funding decisions will be for the Big Lottery Fund, but she will recognise that the success of those projects in recent years to which she alluded will commend them in such decisions. I think that she was the only speaker who was worried about the extent to which the National Lottery promotes gambling. The average stake in the National Lottery is £3, so I do not think that when the Gambling Commission considers how we control gambling generally and further legislation, the National Lottery is likely to cause conspicuous concern. We have been operating a hybrid arrangement without a full legislative framework for some time. This is what the Bill sets out to make in legislation. I hear the criticism, but the noble Lord will recognise that there was a pressing need to act then, and I hope that he will recognise that in legislative terms we have attended to the issue as early as we reasonably could.
	The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, who is strongly supported by the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, was in a very constructive mood. In my more sensitive moments, I look on constructive statements from the other side as dire threats and warnings of tribulation to come, but we always enjoy ourselves in Committee and pursue these things in a constructive manner, so I wish them well in their efforts to persuade me that they can write additionality into the Bill, although I am not too sure that I will be easily convinced on that front.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, made an informed speech on her background and interest in the National Lottery. I very much welcome her comments on the need to sort out licensing arrangements. We seek to go some way with this under the Bill. I also appreciated the positive things that she had to say about the conduct of the lottery. I emphasise that this legislation is there to enhance the operation of a project in which we can all take pride, both under the previous administration and with careful nurturing under this one, and with support at all times from the Liberal Democrat Benches, although sometimes that support can be a little guarded.
	Here is a body from which a huge number of people get a great deal of innocent pleasure, while contributing to projects which, if noble Lords opposite find it difficult to accept additionality, are often ones which we know no government would have been able to finance to the extent that we have of late. Many of those projects involve local communities enormously, and are the best illustration of our community working to improve the lot of everyone in our society with resources which, if not obtained without cost, are relatively painlessly delivered.
	On Question, Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

House adjourned at two minutes before eight o'clock.
	Monday, 6 February 2006.